Tectonic History of the Western United States

GEOL 5690, Spring 2026

Meet: TBD (small class so usually find a slot that works for all interested)

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:

• Offered for spring 2026

Syllabus (for 2024; will be updated for 2026 later)

• Research aids webpage
• Bibliography (background readings, not required readings, includes more older literature)
• Announcement of the course
• Links of use for background:
  • Ron Blakely's original images at Northern Arizona are now gone. Newer images at the (commercial) Deep Time Maps website.
  • Tectonics of the Western U.S. site developed by GEOL5700 in 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2010 and 2013 (needs some TLC to be fully updated). 2016 class examined Hildebrand's Rubia hypothesis for creation of the western U.S. 2021 considered oceanic plateau collision with SW US.
• Bob Anderson's math primer might be of some interest.

Schedule (older agenda items on a separate page)

Homeworks:

• (usually 4-6)

Handouts: (subject to updating)

• Radiometric dating handout
• Subsidence analysis
• Plate flexure (similar to material scattered in Turcotte and Schubert)
• Paleomag
• Plate reconstructions
• Coulomb Wedge (fold-and-thrust belt)
• Dynamic topography
• Stress inversion
• Paleoelevation
• Rheology of the lithosphere
• Gravity, refraction, heat flow overview

Final project 2024: Hit and Run redux

Final project 2021: Plateau Subduction and the Laramide Orogeny

• Research aids webpage

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:

• Hildebrand, R. S. (2009). Did Westward Subduction Cause Cretaceous–Tertiary Orogeny in the North American Cordillera? Geological Society of America Special Paper 457, 71 pp. doi: 10.1130/2009.2457.
• Hildebrand, R. S. (2013). Mesozoic Assembly of the North American Cordillera. Geological Society of America Special Paper 495, 169 pp., doi:10.1130/2013.2495(a).

GEOL5690 home | C. H. Jones | CIRES | Dept. of Geological Sciences | Univ. of Colorado at Boulder

Last modified at October 14, 2025 5:47 PM