Collaborative Research: Linking fold-thrust belt activity to foreland basin response in the Canadian Cordillera

NSF Award Search · 01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT · $499,709 · view on nsf.gov ↗

Abstract

Sedimentary basins adjacent to convergent margin mountain belts host important economic resources and contain key records of past climatic and tectonic events. As such, basin archives are often used to reconstruct long-term variability in mountain building and climatic processes. New quantitative approaches provide direct links between signals of erosion in mountain belts and depositional processes preserved in basins, which can improve understanding of how to interpret these critical sedimentary archives. This project applies novel methodologies to the Alberta basin, next to the Canadian Rocky Mountains, which provides an excellent testing ground due to abundant subsurface datasets and constraints on the geometries of deformation within the mountain belt. This grant supports training of undergraduate and graduate students, collaborations between US and Canadian geoscientists, and development of training modules for the technical methods utilized in this proposal which will be made publicly available to other researchers. This project couples bedrock low-temperature thermochronology and thermokinematic modeling within the fold-thrust belt, with detrital thermochronology, subsidence curves, and provenance analysis in the foreland basin to assess linkages between fold-thrust belt shortening in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and depositional pulses in the Alberta foreland basin system. Low-temperature thermochronology (zircon fission-track and zircon (U-Th)/He), applied in an o

Key facts

NSF award ID
2601487
Awardee
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC)
SAM.gov UEI
D3LHU66KBLD5
PI
Sarah W George
Primary program
01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
All programs
Grad Prep APG:Enhan. Experience, EXP PROG TO STIM COMP RES
Estimated total
$499,709
Funds obligated
$490,176
Transaction type
Standard Grant
Period
10/01/2025 → 08/31/2027