Basin architecture and syndepositional fault activity during deposition of the Neoproterozoic Mackenzie Mountains supergroup, Northwest Territories, Canada

The early Neoproterozoic Mackenzie Mountains supergroup (MMSG; similar to 4 km thick, < 1083 Ma, > 779 Ma) was deposited in a large but poorly understood basin. Analysis of new and existing stratigraphic data reveals unexpected, abrupt changes in thickness and lithofacies patterns in formation scale and smaller units over short distances parallel and perpendicular to depositional strike. These isopach and lithofacies patterns depict irregularly subsiding syndepositional sub-basins. These basins may have developed during basin extension in a lower-plate segment of an evolving passive margin, as the result of episodic, excessive subsidence along growth faults parallel to the basin margin, and crustal-scale (transfer) faults at a high angle to the margin. The extent of the lower-plate area is inferred to correspond to the distribution of the MMSG (similar to 500 km strike length); upper-plate segments are inferred to flank the MMSG embayment to the northwest and southeast. A lower-plate model for the arcuate MMSG embayment has important implications for the Mackenzie Mountains zinc district. The present-day regional distribution of known carbonate-hosted base-metal showings suggests that the configuration of the thinned, faulted Neoproterozoic lower-plate segment, together with later reactivation of basement-rooted transfer faults during Neoproterozoic-Paleozoic rifting or Laramide compression, may have been important in focussing metalliferous fluids into overlying units.