Critical reappraisal of Late Mesozoic-Cenozoic Central and North Atlantic, Caribbean and Mediterranean evolution

• Main Author: Trurnit, Tilman Peter
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 1992
• Subjects: Geodynamic evolution; Tidal forces; Upper and lower mantle; Differencial rotation; Giant hypocycloid gearing Earth; Extended plate tectonic model; Global tectonic megacycles; Oceanic or Wilson Cycle; Eastwards migrating Pacific basin; Double zip fastener principle; East-Weastwards increasing collision ages; Endless collisional mountain belt; Two-lap collisional mountain belt spiral; Eart's history: alternating North and South Pangaea spirals; Pangaea and Gondwana reconstruction; Central and North Atlantic; Caribbean and Mediterranean evolution; Laramide-Cuban/Hispaniolan/Caribbean Andes-Eurekan-Atlas/Alpine belt; Eastern North America-West Africa connection; Clockwise rotation of North America during the Tertiary; Greenland (the Arabia of South America?); Arabia (the Greenland of Africa ?); Greenland; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/4512

(l) The Pacific basin (Pacific area) may be regarded as moving eastwards like a double zip fastener relative to the continents and their respective plates (Pangaea area): opening in the East and closing in the West. This movement is tracked by a continuous mountain belt, the collision ages of which increase westwards. (2) The relative movements between the Pacific area and the Pangaea area in the W-E/E-W direction are generated by tidal forces (principle of hypocycloid gearing), whereby the lower mantle and the Pacific basin or area (Pacific crust = roof of the lower mantle?) rotate somewhat faster eastwards around the Earth's spin axis relative to the upper mantle/crust system with the continents and their respective plates (Pangaea area) (differential rotation). (3) These relative West to East/East to West displacements produce a perpetually existing sequence of distinct styles of opening and closing ocean basins, exemplified by the present East to West arrangement of ocean basins around the globe (Oceanic or Wilson Cycle: Rift/Red Sea style; Atlantic style; Mediterranean/Caribbean style as eastwards propagating tongue of the Pacific basin; Pacific style; Collision/Himalayas style). This sequence of ocean styles, of which the Pacific ocean is a part, moves eastwards with the lower mantle relative to the continents and the upper-mantle/crust of the Pangaea area. (4) Similarly, the collisional mountain belt extending westwards from the equator to the West of the Pacific and representing a chronological sequence of collision zones (sequential collisions) in the wake of the passing of the Pacific basin double zip fastener, may also be described as recording the history of oceans and their continental margins in the form of successive Wilson Cycles. (5) Every 200 to 250 m.y. the Pacific basin double zip fastener, the sequence of ocean styles of the Wilson Cycle and the eastwards growing collisional mountain belt in their wake complete one lap around the Earth. Two East drift lappings of 400 to 500 m.y. produce a ...