Tectonic History of the Western United States
GEOL 5690, Spring 2024
Meet: Wednesdays and Fridays 11:30-12:45, BESC 440E.
Instructor: Craig
Jones, ESCI 440C, cjones@colorado.edu
Text: Turcotte and Schubert, Geodynamics, 2nd or 3rd edition.
Baldridge, Geology of the American
Southwest is optional
Stüwe, Geodynamics of the Lithosphere:
An Introduction can be helpful
News:
- Need to discuss class project.
Syllabus
(mostly updated for 2024)
Wednesday, 3/13. Franciscan complex. What is a melange? How can we tell sedimentary from tectonics melanges, and why might we care? What do blueschists represent?
- Slides from lecture
- Take a look at this, keeping in mind the significance of melanges. Wakabayashi, J., 2021, Subduction and exhumation slip accommodation at depths of 10–80 km inferred from field geology of exhumed rocks: Evidence for temporal-spatial localization of slip, in Wakabayashi, J., and Dilek, Y., eds., Plate Tectonics, Ophiolites, and Societal Significance of Geology: A Celebration of the Career of Eldridge Moores: GSA Special Paper: v. 552: Boulder, Colorado, Geol. Soc. Amer., p. 257-296, doi: 10.1130/2021.2552(12).
Friday, 3/15: Snow day
Wednesday, 3/20, Class project discussion first. (We really need that settled). Fold-and-thrust belts. How and why do they develop as is usually observed? What is a "Coulomb wedge" and how does it help to understand fold-and-thrust belts.
- Coulomb wedge handout
- Turcotte and Schubert, section 8-6 (also Stüwe, pp. 294-298 1st ed, 308-315 (section 6.2.3) 2nd ed)
- Baldridge sections 6.6, 7.2
- application: DeCelles,
P. G., and G. Mitra, History of the Sevier orogenic wedge in terms
of critical taper models, Northeast Utah and Southwest Wyoming, Geological
Society of America Bulletin, 107, 454-462, 1995
- Slides from class and movie of shovelling snow
Friday, 3/22: No meeting in person. Term project targets should be submitted. What are key observables related to the hit-and-run hypothesis? Some of these will be points the authors bring out, but some might be questions you might have about the implications of the model. Send in at least 2 possible targets for a term project.
- Tikoff, B., Housen, B. A., Maxson, J. A., Nelson, E. M., Trevino, S., and Shipley, T. F., 2023, Hit-and-run model for Cretaceous–Paleogene tectonism along the western margin of Laurentia, in Whitmeyer, S. J., Williams, M. L., Kellett, D. A., and Tikoff, B., eds., Laurentia: Turning Points in the Evolution of a Continent: Geol. Soc. Am. Memoir: v. 220: Boulder, Colo., Geological Society of America, p. 0, doi: 10.1130/2022.1220(32).
- A relevant paper that might be of use: Trevino, S. F., and Tikoff, B., 2023, Two phases of Cretaceous dextral shearing recorded in the plutonic rocks of NW Nevada (USA): A tectonic link between intra-arc shearing in the Sierra Nevada and Idaho batholiths: Geosphere, v. 19, no. 6, p. 1539-1564, doi: 10.1130/Ges02682.1.
Sketching out the remainder of the term
- 4/3: Hinterland and paleobarometers
- 4/5: Arc evolution (and a different barometer)
- 4/10: Laramide deformation
- 4/12: Dynamic topography and seaway
- 4/17: POR schists
- 4/19: Nevadaplano and paleoelevation
- 4/21: Ignimbrite flareup & core complexes & extension and potential energy
- 4/26: Sierran structure and geophysics
- 4/28: slop/term presentations
- 5/1: Term presentations
Homeworks:
Handouts: (subject to updating)
Final project 2021: Plateau Subduction and the Laramide Orogeny
Please send mail to cjones@colorado.edu
if you encounter any problems or have suggestions.
GEOL5690 home | C.
H. Jones | CIRES
| Dept. of Geological
Sciences | Univ. of Colorado
at Boulder
Last modified at
March 20, 2024 3:36 PM