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GSA Memoirs
Backbone of the Americas: Shallow Subduction, Plateau Uplift, and Ridge and Terrane Collision
Geological Society of America

Volume
204
Copyright:
© 2009 Geological Society of America
ISBN print:
9780813712048
Publication date:
June 01, 2009
Book Chapter
Anatomy and global context of the North American Cordillera
Author(s)
William R Dickinson
Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
William R Dickinson
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Published:June 01, 2009
The Cordillera of western North America occupies the central 5000 km of the circum-Pacific orogenic belt, which extends for 25,000 km along a great-circle path from Taiwan to the Antarctic Peninsula. The North American Cordillera is anomalous because dextral transform faults along its western flank have supplanted subduction zones, the hallmark of circum-Pacific tectonism, along much of the Cordilleran continental margin since mid-Cenozoic time. The linear continuity of the Cordilleran orogen terminates on the north in the Arctic region and on the south in the Mesoamerican region at sinistral transform faults of Mesozoic and Cenozoic age, respectively.
The Cordilleran margin...
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Index Terms/Descriptors
- accreting plate boundary
- Baja California Mexico
- Basin and Range Province
- basins
- batholiths
- California
- Cenozoic
- Circum-Pacific region
- continental drift
- continental margin
- crust
- extension tectonics
- faults
- fore-arc basins
- geosynclines
- intrusions
- island arcs
- Laurentia
- magmatism
- Mesozoic
- Mexico
- miogeosynclines
- Neoproterozoic
- North America
- North American Cordillera
- North American Plate
- oceanic crust
- orogenic belts
- Pacific Plate
- Pacific region
- paleogeography
- Paleozoic
- Permian
- plate tectonics
- Precambrian
- Proterozoic
- rifting
- Rodinia
- sedimentary basins
- slabs
- strike-slip faults
- subduction
- subduction zones
- tectonics
- transform faults
- Triassic
- United States
- upper Precambrian
Latitude & Longitude
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