Acadian orogeny Acadian orogeny The Acadian orogeny is a long-lasting mountain building event which began in the Middle Devonian, reaching a climax in the early Late Devonian. It was active for approximately 50 million years, beginning roughly around 375 million years ago, with deformational, plutonic, and metamorphic events extending into the Early Mississippian. The Acadian orogeny is the third of the four orogenies that created the Appalachian orogen and subsequent basin. The preceding orogenies consisted of the Potomac and Taconic orogeny, which followed a rift/drift stage in the Late Neoproterozoic. The Acadian orogeny involved the collision of a series of Avalonian continental
Svecofennian orogeny rocks and the emplacement of the Jormua and Outokumpu ophiolites about 1950 million years ago. In the later stages of the Lapland-Savo orogeny an island arc, the Knaften arc, accreted to the Keitele-Karelia-Norrbotten collage. The stage to the Fennian orogeny was set by a collision between Keitele and Karelia about 1920–1910 million years ago which resulted in a reorganization of the local plate tectonics. As concequence the Bergslagen microcontinents collided with the Keitele–Karelia collage starting the Fennian orogeny. The until then linear Fennian orogen was "buckled" from 1870 million years ago onwards due to an orthogonal change in tectonic compressive