Fragments of Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic orogenic belts were spread around the Arctic during opening of the northeast Atlantic and Arctic basins. Late Paleozoic Ellesmerian and the Cenozoic Eurekan deformations are recognized in Canada, north Greenland and Svalbard; Caledonian granites and migmatites are distributed all over northeast Greenland up to Svalbard and there is evidence of, at least, late Grenvillean-Sveconorwegian Orogeny throughout the high Arctic, from northern Canada to east Greenland, Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya, Taimyr and Severnaya Zemlya, in the Urals and the Scandinavian Caledonides. Since the Late Paleozoic, huge unconformities separate deformed and/or metamorphic basement, from deep and wide sedimentary basins, in turn affected by younger tectonic events leading to Mesozoic rifting and later drifting. Cenozoic large scale fracture zones and strike-slip faults reactivated in many cases old tectonic lineaments causing intra-plate deformation with the resulting uplift and exhumation of Mesozoic basins around Canada, Greenland and the Barents Sea.

The aim of the session is to invite scientists to discuss and present new results and ideas about the tectonic evolution of the region around the Arctic gateway, from the assembling and break-up of Rodinia, through the assembly of Pangea and the opening of the Eurasian Basin.

Solicited talk: Christian Tegner "Age of Magmatism and Eurekan Deformation in North Greenland"