Cape St. Marys shear zone and the Halifax Group - Rockville Notch Group disconformity, southwestern Nova Scotia: structural development and tectonic significance

The Cape St. Marys shear zone, situated in a corridor of Alleghanian reworking in the southwestern Meguma terrane, contains the deformed, discordant contact of Lower Ordovician slate of the Halifax Group with the Silurian White Rock Formation. Close to the contact, the Alleghanian cleavage (S2) is parallel to the contact in both units, with S0 in the White Rock Formation metavolcanic rocks and Halifax slate parallel to and discordant to the contact. The geometry of deformed Neoacadian minor folds, quartz fringes on sulphide grains, and micro-porphyroclasts demonstrate thrust-sense shear (White Rock Formation over Halifax slate). Pure shear and volume loss are inferred as components of the strain path from S2 microstructure and estimates of strain in the Halifax slate. Estimates of shear strain imply moderate displacements within the Cape St. Marys shear zone during deformation of the northwestern limb of the Cape St. Marys syncline. The discordant contact of the Halifax slate with the White Rock formation...