Abstract
The Welsh ‘geosyncline’1, an example of the classic geosyncline, has often been viewed in terms of plate tectonics as a Japan Sea-type marginal sea2–15. It is generally agreed that in the Welsh area during Cambrian and Ordovician times, Anglesey, with its north-east and south-west extensions, was an island arc complex with a trench to the north-west, the trench being accompanied by a south-east dipping subduction zone which caused the Ordovician volcanism of Wales2,5,10–14. Some authors believe that the Welsh region was the site of a back-arc tensional basin at the time of Ordovician volcanism. We believe that in Silurian times the subduction zone migrated landwards, that is southeastwards, due to tectonic erosion16, a process which has been implied for the modern Japan Trench17. Here, we compare the Welsh Silurian Basin with the modern Japan Sea and the sedimentary basins of the Pacific offshore of Japan, and conclude that a different interpretation is possible, that the Silurian Basin could have been a fore-arc basin.
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Okada, H., Smith, A. The Welsh ‘geosyncline’ of the Silurian was a fore-arc basin. Nature 288, 352–354 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/288352a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/288352a0
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