The North American Cordillera in Canada and Alaska has been investigated through coincident and coordinated geological, geochemical, and geophysical studies along three corridors: (1) the Lithoprobe Southern Cordillera transect, (2) the ACCRETE and Lithoprobe Slave-Northern Cordillera Lithospheric Evolution (SNORCLE) transects, and (3) the Trans-Alaska Crustal Transect (TACT) program. Seismic-reflection and refraction experiments are integral to these studies and contribute to lithospheric-scale models that enable orogen-parallel comparisons to be made. Primary observations include three points: (1) Outward-verging, crustal-scale décollements are characteristic features of the orogen. The three trans-Cordillera transects exhibit decoupling zones that dip away from the Foreland belt to the...