Variscan inversion within the Cheshire Basin, England: carboniferous evolution north of the Variscan Front

A comprehensive seismic reflection and borehole database over the whole of the Cheshire Basin has allowed examination of the Carboniferous succession beneath a thick Permo-Triassic cover. Construction of a seismic sequence st ratigraphy involving the recognition of unconformity-bounded packages has a llowed the examination of the control by tectonics of sedimentation within the pre-Permo-Triassic of the Cheshire Basin. The Carboniferous has been di vided into two unconformity-bound megasequences, i.e. Dinantian MS10.0 and Namurian-Westphalian MS20.0. These are deformed by a hitherto unknown serie s of Variscan structures. Interpretation of these structures has allowed as sessment of the Variscan Orogeny in this area of the Variscan foreland. Con siderable Variscan inversion in the area exists 100-150 km north of the Var iscan Fold-Thrust Front and is suggested to illustrate the effects of predo minantly E-W directed compression, especially to the north of the northern apex of the adjacent Midlands Microcraton. Compression occurred during TWO Late Carboniferous pulses of thrusting. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.