SWEAT: South Western US and EastAntarctica

This configuration of Rodinia is based on fitting southwestern United States with Antarctica and Canada with Austalia. One of the questions that Mojavia and the Proterozoic and Paleozoic formations brings up is: what is the source for the exotic Proterozoic and Archaen material? Borg and DePaulo (1994) believe that the Archaen source is the Miller Range in Antarctica. The TDM of the proterozoic basement is 2.0-2.2Ga, matching the TDM determined by Bennett and DePaulo (1987).

The SWEAT configuration (on the right) was first proposed by Moores (1991). He used the orogeny that accreted Mazatzal to Yavapai as a Laurentian continuaation of the Wompay orogony on Antarctica. Also, Moores (1991) suggested that the Belt supergroup had a depositional source in the Transantarctic Mountains and that there is perhaps a continuance of the Pahrump group in Patuxent formation in Antarctica. The main problem with these connections are that they are mostly speculation and haven't been tested (mainly because it is Antarctica).

Australia is matched with Canadain the SWEAT model. Siberia (not shown) is frequently matched with northern Laurentia in the SWEAT configuration, while other models have places Siberia next to Mojavia (Buchan et al., 2001).

Above is the Moores SWEAT configuration (A) compared to an adjusted SWEAT proposed by Borg and DePaulo(994). This modified SWEAT model has more concrete data supporting it. TDM from Antarctica are matched with the southwestern United States. Antarctic terranes are brought down towards Yavapai-Mazatzal by a long right lateral system. The Miller Range is matched with Mojavia based on TDM values (they both have TDM of 2.0-2.2). But recent work by Ramo and Calzia (1998) have found crustal model ages in Mojavia of 2.1-2.6 Ga, which is significantly older than the Miller Range. Most of the data supporting the SWEAT model comes from paleorift configurations and the geology of Antarctica which is poorly known. This model is very hard to test for these reasons. The other popular Rodinia reconstruction is AUSWUS, which has more supporting data.