Deformational history and thermochronology of Wrangel Island, East Siberian Shelf and coastal Chukotka, Arctic Russia

Wrangel Island, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, represents a crustal-scale extensional boudin rather than a continuation of Alaska's Brookian thrust belt. The study reveals that deformation on Wrangel Island occurred during post-shortening north–south extension, not fold-thrust belt activity, based on shared thermal histories with Chukotka. Research used deformational analysis, thermochronology (U-Pb zircon, 40Ar/39Ar biotite, apatite fission track), and seismic data to determine that deformation occurred at greenschist facies (300–450°C) during the Triassic or earlier, with cooling to near-surface conditions by ~95 Ma. The findings challenge previous assumptions about the geological evolution of the region.

Miller, E. L., Akinin, V. V., Dumitru, T. A., Gottlieb, E. S., Grove, M., Meisling, K., & Seward, G. (2017). Deformational history and thermochronology of Wrangel Island, East Siberian Shelf and coastal Chukotka, Arctic Russia. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 460(1), 207–238. https://doi.org/10.1144/sp460.7