Caledonian orogeny Caledonian orogeny The Caledonian orogeny was a mountain-building era recorded in the northern parts of Ireland and Britain, the Scandinavian Mountains, Svalbard, eastern Greenland and parts of north-central Europe. The Caledonian orogeny encompasses events that occurred from the Ordovician to Early Devonian, roughly 490–390 million years ago (Ma). It was caused by the closure of the Iapetus Ocean when the continents and terranes of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia collided. The Caledonian orogeny is named for Caledonia, the Latin name for Scotland. The name was first used in 1885 by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess for an episode of mountain building in
Petermann Orogeny the Cambrian. Sediments are a mixture of fluvial conglomerates, sandstones, and siltstones. Several pull-apart structural grabens formed at flexures in the orogenic belt, forming the Levenger and Moorilyanna Grabens. The Petermann Orogeny is dominated by south-over-north movement on several large, anastomosing curved thrust faults. The prime thrust fault is the Woodroffe Thrust, which is a laminated pseudotachlyte-schist zone up to 300 metres thick. This has accommodated up to 42 kilometres of vertical movement at an angle of about 15 to 20 degrees. The structure of the Petermann Orogen within the Musgrave Block is considered to be a "flower-structure", which is