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:

Syllabus (mostly updated for 2024)

 

Schedule (older agenda items on a separate page)

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?

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.

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.

 

Sketching out the remainder of the term

Homeworks:

Handouts: (subject to updating)


Final project 2021: Plateau Subduction and the Laramide Orogeny

Final Project 2016: Final Hildebrand analyses online here

Our set of points used to examine to test the hypothesis of Hildebrand.
The papers by Hildebrand we examined in 2016:

 

 


 


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