Gulf of California analogue for origin of Late Paleozoic ocean basins adjacent to western North America
- Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Ocean crust accreted to the western margin of North America following the Late Devonian to earliest Missippian Antler orogeny is not older than Devonian. Therefore, ocean crust all along the margin of western North America may have been very young following the Antler event. This situation can be compared to the present-day margin of North America which lies adjacent to young ocean crust as a result of the subduction of the Farallon plate and arrival of the East Pacific spreading ridge. Syn- and post-Antler rifting that occurred along the North American margin may well be analogous to the formation of the Gulf of California by the propagation of the East Pacific spreading ridge. Black-arc rifting associated with the subduction of very old ocean crust seems a less likely mechanism for the early stages of ocean basin formation along the late Paleozoic margin of western North America because of the apparent absence of old ocean crust to the west of the arc terranes. The eastern Pacific basins were as long-lived as any truly oceanic basins and may have constituted, by the earliest Permian, a single wedge-shaped basin separated from the western Pacific by rifted fragments of North American arc-terranes. In the Permian, the rifted arcs were once again sites of active magmatism and the eastern Pacific basins began to close, from south (Golconda terrane) to north. Final closure of the northernmost eastern Pacific basin (Angayucham in Alaska) did not occur until the Jurassic.
- OSTI ID:
- 5130021
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9305259--
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Vol. 25:5; ISSN GAAPBC; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Permian and Pennsylvanian tectonic events in eastern California in relation to major plate motions
Tectonostratigraphic terranes of the frontier circum-Pacific region