image: The Greenland Caledonides: Evolution of the Northeast Margin of Laurentia. view more
Credit: Geological Society of America
Boulder, CO, USA - This most recent volume in The Geological Society of America's Memoir series presents an overview of the East Greenland Caledonides within a modern plate-tectonic framework - "summarized as the birth, life, and death of the Iapetus Ocean as recorded on the Greenland margin," says senior editor A.K. (Tony) Higgins of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Accompanying this memoir is a new 1:1,000,000-scale color geological map of northeast Greenland in print and on CD-ROM.
This new analysis of the East Greenland Caledonides, a region that is remote and difficult of access, is based on detailed modern investigations over a period of 30 years by international specialists, mainly under the auspices of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). Most of the chapter authors participated in GEUS-sponsored field work in East Greenland for a number of summer seasons and have numerous publications in international journals to their credit.
The Caledonian orogen is exposed in East Greenland over an up-to-200-km-wide stretch of ice-free land that extends for 1300 km between latitudes 70-82degrees north. It occupies a total area of approximately 127,000 square kilometers between the Inland Ice and the North Atlantic Ocean. The new geological map was compiled on the basis of five previous 1:500,000 map sheets of the area, with modifications and updated interpretations.
According to Higgins, "This is a volume that addresses all geologists with Caledonian interests. The data presented are of direct significance to the tectonic development of adjacent parts of the orogen, now preserved in Scotland, Svalbard, and Scandinavia, as well as in the Appalachians farther south along the Laurentian margin."
Individual copies of the volume may be purchased through the Geological Society of America online bookstore http://rock.geosociety.org/Bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=8&pID=MWR202 or by contacting GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Book editors of earth science journals/publications may request a review copy by contacting Jeanette Hammann, jhammann@geosociety.org.
The Greenland Caledonides: Evolution of the Northeast Margin of Laurentia
A.K. Higgins, Jane A. Gilotti, and M. Paul Smith (editors)
Geological Society of America Memoir 202
2008, 368 pages plus CD-ROM and map, US$80.00, GSA member price US$56.00
ISBN 978-0-8137-1202-4