Circum-Pacific mid-Cretaceous deformation and uplift: A superplume-related event?

• Main Author: Vaughan, Alan P.M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Geological Society of America 1995
• Subjects: Pacific; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Alaska
• Online Access: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/515878/; https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(1995)023<0491:CPMCDA>2.3.CO;2

Evidence of short-lived episodes of mid-Cretaceous deformation, metamorphism, uplift, and hiatus in sedimentation is widespread in the Lower Cretaceous rocks that bordered the Cretaceous Pacific basin. I present a model in which these coeval but widely spaced events are linked to increased ridge-push force at subduction zones triggered by large-scale upwelling of mantle associated with the mid-Cretaceous superplume. This model can account for mid-Cretaceous terrane accretion and ophiolite obduction events and can explain brief compressional phases in predominantly extensional orogenies as recognized in Alaska, British Columbia, California, western South America, and West Antarctica.