Timing of exhumation and deformation across the Taimyr fold–thrust belt: insights from apatite fission track dating and balanced cross-sections

The exhumation and shortening history associated with the Taimyr fold–thrust belt is determined using apatite fission track and balanced cross-section analysis. Eighteen samples from across northern, central and southern Taimyr are used for apatite fission track analysis. These include granite, meta-arenite and sandstone samples with stratigraphic ages ranging from the late Proterozoic to Early Cretaceous. Fission track lengths and central ages are used to model the thermal history of the region and indicate three episodes of cooling in the Early Permian, earliest Triassic and Late Triassic. The thermochronological data are integrated with two balanced regional cross-sections. The regional structural style of deformation reflects a thick-skinned thrust system with 15% shortening (minimum estimate). This is consistent with thickening during early Permian Uralian orogenesis, followed by later heating, uplift and cooling associated with Siberian Trap magmatism and/or Mesozoic transpression.