Epeirogeny or eustasy? Paleozoic-Mesozoic vertical motion of the North American continental interior from thermochronometry and implications for mantle dynamics

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Volumn 317-318, Issue , 2012, Pages 436-445

  Flowers, Rebecca M ^a   Ault, Alexis K ^a   Kelley, Shari A ^b   Zhang, Nan ^a   Zhong, Shijie ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

^b NEW MEXICO INSTITUTE OF MINING AND TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

(U Th) He; Craton; Dynamic topography; Geodynamic modeling; Thermochronology; Thermochronometry

Indexed keywords

(U-TH)/HE; CRATON; DYNAMIC TOPOGRAPHY; GEODYNAMIC MODELING; THERMOCHRONOLOGY; THERMOCHRONOMETRY;

DYNAMIC MODELS; GEODYNAMICS; METALS; PHOSPHATE MINERALS; SEA LEVEL; SURFACE TESTING; THREE DIMENSIONAL; TOPOGRAPHY;

GEOCHRONOLOGY;

BUOYANCY; CONTINENTAL INTERIOR; CRATON; CRUSTAL DEFORMATION; EUSTACY; FISSION TRACK DATING; GEODYNAMICS; MESOZOIC; PALEOZOIC; SEDIMENTARY ROCK; THERMOCHRONOLOGY; THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODELING; TOPOGRAPHY; UNROOFING;

CANADIAN SHIELD;

EID: 84856623628     PISSN: 0012821X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2011.11.015     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Algeo T.J., Seslavinsky K.B. The Paleozoic world: continental flooding, hypsometry, and sealevel. Am. J. Sci. 1995, 295:787-822.
2. Ault A.K., Flowers R.M., Bowring S.A. Phanerozoic burial and unroofing history of the western Slave craton and Wopmay orogen from apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronometry. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 2009, 284:1-11.
3. Bond G.C., Kominz M.A. Disentangling middle Paleozoic sea level and tectonic events in cratonic margins and cratonic basins of North America. J. Geophys. Res. 1991, 96:6619-6639.
4. Braun J. The many surface expressions of mantle dynamics. Nat. Geosci. 2010, 3:825-833.
5. Burgess P.M., Gurnis M. Mechanisms for the formation of cratonic stratigraphic sequences. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 1995, 136:647-663.
6. Cazenave A., Souriau A., Dominh K. Global coupling of Earth surface topography with hotspots, geoid and mantle heterogeneities. Nature 1989, 340:54-57.
7. Chapman D.S. Thermal gradients in the continental crust. Geological Society Special Publication 1986, 24:63-70. J.B. Dawson, D.A. Carswell, J. Hall, K.H. Wedepohl (Eds.).
8. Conrad C.P., Husson L. Influence of dynamic topography on sea level and its rate of change. Lithosphere 2009, 1:110-120.
9. Cookenboo H.O., Orchard M.J., Daoud D.K. Remnants of Paleozoic cover on the Archean Canadian Shield: limestone xenoliths from kimberlite in the central Slave craton. Geology 1998, 26:391-394.
10. Davies G.F., Pribac F. Mesozoic seafloor subsidence and the Darwin Rise, past and present. The Mesozoic Pacific. Geology, Tectonics, and Volcanism, Geophysics Mono 1993, 77:39-52. AGU, Washington, D.C. S. Pringle (Ed.).
11. Farley K.A., Wolf R.A., Silver L.T. The effect of long alpha-stopping distances on (U-Th)/He ages. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 1996, k60:4223-4229.
12. Feinstein S., Kohn B.P., Osadetz K., Everitt R., O'Sullivan P. Variable Phanerozoic thermal history in the southern Canadian shield: evidence from an apatite fission-track profile at the Underground Research Laboratory (URL), Manitoba. Tectonophysics 2009, 475:190-199.
13. Flowers R.M. Exploiting radiation damage control on apatite (U-Th)/He dates in cratonic regions. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 2009, 277:148-155.
14. Flowers R.M., Mahan K.H., Bowring S.A., Williams M.L., Pringle M.S., Hodges K.V. Multistage exhumation and juxtaposition of lower continental crust in the western Canadian Shield: linking high-resolution U-Pb and 40Ar/39Ar thermochronometry with P-T-D paths. Tectonics 2006, 25.
15. Flowers R.M., Ketcham R.A., Shuster D.L., Farley K.A. Apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronometry using a radiation damage accumulation and annealing model. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 2009, 73:2347-2365.
16. Gallagher Evolving temperature histories from apatite fission-track data. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 1995, 136:421-435.
17. Gallagher K., Charvin K., Nielsen S., Sambridge M., Stephenson J. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling methods to determine optimal models, model resolution and model choice for Earth Science problems. Mar. Pet. Geol. 2009, 26:525-535.
18. Godey S., Deschamps F., Trampert J., Snieder R. Thermal and compositional anomalies beneath the North American continent. J. Geophys. Res. 2004, 109:B01308.
19. Gurnis M. Phanerozoic marine inundation of continents driven by dynamic topography above subducting slabs. Nature 1993, 364.
20. Hager B.H., Richards M.A. Long-wavelength variations in Earth's geoid: physical models and dynamical implications. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 1989, 328:309-327.
21. Haq B.U., Al-Qahtani A.M. Phanerozoic cycles of sea-level change on the Arabian Platform. GeoArabia 2005, 10:127-160.
22. Haq B.U., Schutter S.R. A chronology of Paleozoic sea-level changes. Science 2008, 322:64-68.
23. Hoffman P.F. Precambrian geology and tectonic history of North America. The Geology of North America - An overview 1989, 447-512. Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO. A.W. Bally, A.R. Palmer (Eds.).
24. Kelley S.A., Chapin C.E., Corrigan J. Mesozoic to Cenozoic cooling histories of the flanks of the northern and central Rio Grande rift, Colorado and New Mexico. N. Mex. Bur. Mines Miner. Resour. Bull. 1992, 145:39.
25. Ketcham R.A. Forward and inverse modeling of low temperature thermochronometry data. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry: Low-temperature thermochronology: Techniques, interpretations, and applications 2005, 275-314. Mineralogical Society of, America. P.W. Reiners, T.A. Ehlers (Eds.).
26. Ketcham R.A., Carter A.C., Donelick R.A., Barbarand J., Hurford A.J. Improved modeling of fission-track annealing in apatite. Am. Mineral. 2007, 92:799-810.
27. Ketcham R.A., Donelick R.A., Balestrieri M.L., Zattin M. Reproducibility of apatite fission-track length data and thermal history reconstruction. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 2009, 284:504-515.
28. Kohn B.P., Gleadow A.J.W., Brown R.W., Gallagher K., Lorencak M., Noble W.P. Visualizing thermotectonic and denudation histories using apatite fission-track thermochronology. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry: Low-temperature thermochronology: Techniques, interpretations, and applications 2005, 527-565. Mineralogical Society of, America. P.W. Reiners, T.A. Ehlers (Eds.).
29. Laslett G.M., Kendall W.S., Gleadow A.J.W., Duddy I.R. Bias in measurement of fission-track length distributions. Nucl. Tracks Radiat. Meas. 1982, 170:79-85.
30. Lay T., Hernlund J., Buffett B.A. Core-mantle boundary heat flux. Nat. Geosci. 2008, 1:25-32.
31. Leng W., Zhong S.J. Constrols on plume heat flux and plume excess temperature. J. Geophys. Res. 2008, 113:B04408. 10.1029/2007JB005155.
32. Lewis T.J., Wang K. Influence of terrain on bedrock temperature. Glob. Planet. Chang. 1992, 98:87-100.
33. Lewis T.J., Hyndman R.D., Flock P. Heat flow, heat generation, and crustal temperatures in the northern Canadian Cordillera: thermal control of tectonics. J. Geophys. Res. 2003, 198:2316-2334.
34. Lithgow-Bertelloni C., Gurnis M. Cenozoic subsidence and uplift of continents from time-varying dynamic topography. Geology 1997, 25:735-738.
35. Lithgow-Bertelloni C., Richards M.A. Dynamics of Cenozoic and Mesozoic plate motions. Rev. Geophys. 1998, 36:27-78.
36. Liu L., Spasojevic S., Gurnis M. Reconstructing Farallon Plate subduction beneath North America back to the Late Cretaceous. Science 2008, 322:934-938.
37. Mareschal J.C., Jaupart C. Variations of surface heat flow and lithospheric thermal structure beneath the North American craton. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 2004, 223:65-77.
38. Mareschal J.C., Jaupart C., Cheng L.Z., Rolandone F., Gariepy C., Bienfait G., Guillou-Frottier L., Lapointe R. Heat flow in the Trans-Hudson Orogen of the Canadian Shield: Implications for Proterozoic continental growth. J. Geophys. Res. 1999, 104:29,007-29,024.
39. Mareschal J.C., Jaupart C., Rolandone F., Gariepy C., Fowler C.M.R., Bienfait G., Carbonne C., Lapointe R. Heat flow, thermal regime, and elastic thickness of the lithosphere in the Trans-Hudson Orogen. Can. J. Earth Sci. 2005, 42:517-532.
40. Miller K.G., Kominz M.A., Browning J.D., Wright J.D., Mountain G.S., Katz M.E., Sugarman P.J., Cramer B.S., Christie-Blick N., Pekar S.F. The Phanerozoic record of global sea-level change. Science 2005, 310:1293-1298.
41. Mitrovica J.X., Beaumont C., Jarvis G.T. Tilting of continental interiors by the dynamical effects of subduction. Tectonics 1989, 8:1079-1094.
42. Moucha R., Forte A.M., Mitrovica J.X., Rowley D.B., Quere S., Simmons N.A., Grand S.P. Dynamic topography and long-term sea-level variations: there is no such thing as a stable continental platform. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 2008, 271:101-108.
43. Muller R.D., Sdrolias M., Gaina C., Steinberger B., Heine C. Long-term sea-level fluctuations driven by ocean basin dynamics. Science 2008, 319:1357-1362.
44. Nurkowski J.F. Coal quality, rank variation, and its relation to reconstructed overburden, Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary plains coals, Alberta, Canada. AAPG Bull. 1984, 68:285-295.
45. Nyblade A.A., Robinson S.W. The African superswell. Geophys. Res. Lett. 1994, 21:765-768. 10.1029/94GL00631.
46. Patchett P.J., Embry A.F., Ross G.M., Beauchamp B., Harrison J.C., Mayr U., Isachsen C.E., Rosenberg E.J., Spence G.O. Sedimentary cover of the Canadian shield through Mesozoic time reflected by Nd isotopic and geochemical results for the Sverdrup Basin, arctic Canada. J. Geol. 2004, 112:39-57.
47. Pell J.A. Kimberlites in the Slave structural province, NWT, Canada. Mineral Deposits Division 1996, 51:1-3.
48. Pysklywec R.N., Mitrovica J.X. Mantle flow mechanisms of epeirogeny and their possible role in the evolution of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Can. J. Earth Sci. 2000, 37:1535-1548.
49. Rayner N.M., Stern R.A., Bickford M.E. Tectonic implications of new SHRIMP and TIMS U-Pb geochronology of rocks from the Sask Craton, Peter Lake Domain, and Hearne margin, Trans-Hudson Orogen, Saskatchewan. Can. J. Earth Sci. 2005, 42:635-657.
50. Ricard Y., Fleitout L., Froidevaux C. Geoid heights and lithospheric stresses for a dynamical Earth. Annu. Geophys. 1984, 2:267-286.
51. Ricard Y., Richards M., Lithgow-Bertelloni C., Stunff Y.L. A geodynamic model of mantle density heterogeneity. J. Geophys. Res. 1993, 98:21895-21909.
52. Schneider D.A., Heizler M.T., Bickford M.E., Wortman G.L., Condie K.C., Perilli S. Timing constraints of orogeny to cratonization: Thermochronology of the Paleoproterozoic Trans-Hudson orogen, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. Precambrian Res. 2007, 153:65-95.
53. Scotese C.R. Atlas of Earth History. PALEOMAP Progress Report 90-0497 2001, Dept. of Geol., Univ. of Tex, at Arlington, Texas.
54. Sleep N.H. Platform subsidence mechanisms and "eustatic" sea-level changes. Tectonophysics 1976, 36:45-56.
55. Sloss L.L. Sequences in the cratonic interior of North America. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 1963, 74:93-114.
56. Spasojevic S., Liu L., Gurnis M., Muller R.D. The case for dynamic subsidence of the U.S. east coast since the Eocene. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2008, 35:L08305. 10.1029/02008GL033511.
57. Spasojevic S., Liu L., Gurnis M. Adjoint models of mantle convection with seismic, plate motion, and stratigraphic constraints: North America since the Late Cretaceous. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 2009, 10:Q05W02. 10.1029/2008GC002345.
58. Stephenson J., Gallagher K., Holmes C. A Bayesian approach to calibrating apatite fission track annealing models for laboratory and geological timescales. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 2006, 70:5183-5200.
59. Vail P.R., Mitchum R.M., Thompson S. Seismic stratigraphy and global changes in sea level. Part 4: global cycles of relative changes of sea level. Mem. Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol. 1977, 26:83-97.
60. Ward P.L. Subduction cycles under western North America during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Geol. Soc. Am. Spec. Pap. 1995, 299:12.
61. Watts A.B., Steckler M.S. Subsidence and eustasy at the continental margin of eastern North America. Deep Drilling Results in the Atlantic Ocean: Continental Margins and Paleoenvironment 1979, 218-234. American Geophysical Union. M.E. Series (Ed.).
62. Wheeler, J.O., Hoffman, P.F., Card, K.D., Davidson, A., Sanford, B.V., Okulitch, A.V., Roest, W.R., 1996. Geological Map of Canada. Geological Survey of Canada, "A" Series Map 1860A.
63. Willett S.D., Issler D.R., Beaumont C., Donelick R.A., Grist A.M. Inverse modeling of annealing of fission tracks in apatite 2: application to the thermal history of the Peace River Arch Region, Williston Basin. Am. J. Sci. 1997, 297:970-1011.
64. Wright G.M. Geological notes on central District of Keewatin, Northwest Territories. Geol. Surv. Can. Pap. 1955, 55-17:8-12.
65. Wright G.N., McMechan M.E., Potter D.E.G. Structure and architecture of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. (Comp.), Geological Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists and Alberta Research Council, Calgary, Alberta 1994, G.D. Mossop, I. Shetson (Eds.).
66. Zhang N., Zhong S., Leng W., Li Z.-X. A model for the evolution of the Earth's mantle structure since the Early Paleozoic. J. Geophys. Res. 2010, 115:1-22.
67. Zhang, N., Zhong, S., Flowers, R.M., this volume. Predicting and testing continental vertical motion histories since the Paleozoic. Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
68. Zhong S., Zhang N., Li Z.-X., Roberts J.H. Supercontinent cycles, true polar wander, and very long-wavelength mantle convection. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 2007, 261:551-564.