Quantitative paleocurrent/paleoslope analysis, one of the most powerful tools in the study of sedimentary basins, has not been widely applied in problematic metasedimentary basins within mountain belts. This award will confront some of the analytical difficulties which have discouraged such work, in the context of a regional survey of paleocurrent and paleoslope directions in the Maine Appalachians. We introduce innovative approaches in two problem areas: retrodeformation of directional indicators, and kinematic analysis of soft-sediment deformation structures. A rational approach to retrodeformation of directional indicators is illustrated in terms of bedding pole paths during deformation, and a broad selection of possible tilt-correction paths is thereby revealed. A simple orthographic construction for strain correction of directional indicators is proposed to supercede comparable but more complex stereographic constructions proposed in the early 1960's by Ramsay. Proposed innovations in kinematic analysis of soft-sediment deformation structures include slump fold vergence as a more powerful alternative to the separation arc and mean axis methods, and the use of displacement stereovectors to better exploit available information from soft-sediment faults. The proposed research will thereby introduce several recent advances of structural analysis to the sedimentological community. An important by-product of our work will be the development of a user-interactive Macintosh software package for paleocurrent and paleoslope analysis, which will ensure that the more difficult and/or laborious new procedures will be accessible to non-specialists.
