An early advocator of the flat slab theory, Dr. Peter Bird utilized the orientations of major and minor faults correlated to the Laramide age to reconstruct a kinematic history for the Laramide Orogeny.

Computations and empirical data on the faults allow for a time lapse of orogenic events as they occurred during the Laramide Orogeny. As expected, deformation driven by basal traction during an interval of horizontal subduction of the Farallon plate occurred first in the west, advanced eastward, and then retreated westward with the subsidence of the horizontal plate underneath the lithosphere.