The Kapuskasing Structural Zone is a linear feature of high metamorphic grade rocks
crossing the structural grain of the central Superior Province. It is interpreted to have been
thrust eastwards to the surface along a listric fault exhibited as the Ivanhoe Lake Cataclastic
Zone. The tilting has caused an oblique cross-section to be exposed, representing about
twenty kilometres of the continental crust.
Line 5 of the Lithoprobe seismic refraction survey shows that the Kapuskasing Structural
Zone is a high velocity 6.6 km/s block outcropping through a generally lower velocity 6.0
to 6.3 km/s crust. The high velocity block dips to the west, in agreement with the thrust
model. There is evidence that it narrows with depth. It is proposed that the Kapuskasing
Structural Zone is representative of the high seismic velocity material observed in the deep
crust, and that its metamorphic western boundary represents the Conrad discontinuity.
1986. B.Sc. thesis, Department of Geology, Carleton University, Ottawa.