Middle American Terranes, Potential Correlatives, and Orogenic Processes

Consisting of papers that have appeared recently in International Geology Review, Middle American Terranes, Potential Correlatives, and Orogenic Processes focuses on Middle American terranes in which tectonic processes, including flat-slab subduction, for orogenic development are examined at various times since the late Mesoproterozoic: at 1 Ga, through the Paleozoic, and into the Cenozoic. Many papers relate the evolution of the Middle American terranes over the past billion years to global scale events, and a second theme running through the book relates to the supercontinents, Rodinia and Pangea, the geometry of their amalgamation and breakup, and the processes responsible.

Highlights include:

·       An update on the geographic record, tectonic setting, and provenance of these terranes

·       Documentation of allocthonous nature and position peripheral to Amazonia of the ~1 Ga basement of southern Mexico

·       Data demonstrating that the basement rocks were involved in several Phanerozoic tectonic events

·       An examination of new evidence of a Late Paleozoic event associated with the amalgamation of Pangea overprinting the ~1 Ga basement and the Paleozoic units lying chiefly to the west and south of it

·       An exploration of the following potential correlatives: (1) events in Europe on the northern margin of Gondwana; (2) the Late Silurian-Devonian Acadian orogeny in the Appalachian, which is inferred to have resulted from flat-slab subduction related to overriding a plume; and (3) Mesozoic-Cenozoic events along the western margin of Laurentia

·       A discussion of possible mechanisms for the initiation of orogeny, flat-slab subduction in the Laramide orogeny, and hypotheses relating to the amalgamation and breakup of supercontine