The Champlain Thrust is a fault extending southward from southern Quebec, though western Vermont in the Champlain Valley, and into eastern New York in the Hudson Valley. This east dipping thrust fault transports Cambrian-Ordovician passive margin shelf rocks westerward by about 30–50 miles (48–80 km) and places them on top of Middle Ordovician rocks. The Middle Ordivician accretion of the one or more island arcs terranes drove the initial thrusting during the Taconic Orogeny, though reactivation of the fault may have occurred during the middle Devonian Acadian Orogeny.
The thrust fault is exposed to the north of the city of Burlington, Vermont on the shores of Lake Champlain at Lone Rock Point. Here the Lower Cambrian Dunham dolostone can be seen thrust on top of the Middle Ordovician Iberville shales.
The Champlain Thrust marks the most westerly thrust of the Taconic Orogeny.
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