Abstract
We have recently developed a procedure for calculating tectonic subsidence in fully-lithified basin sequences and applied it to Cambrian and Ordovician strata of tbe Cordilleran miogeocline exposed in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains1. The cumulative tectonic subsidence curves were found to be mainly thermal in form as predicted by the passive margin model for the miogeocline2. In this paper we extend the analysis to Cambrian and Ordovician strata in a much larger segment of the miogeocline extending from the Yukon Territory to central Nevada. The results indicate that thermal contraction was the dominant subsidence mechanism for more than 2,000 km along the eastern or inner part of the miogeocline. In addition, we find a slight but persistent deviation in the subsidence curves from a purely thermal form that is consistent with a global sea level change proposed by Vail and others3 for Cambrian to middle Ordovician time.
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Bond, G., Kominz, M. & Devlin, W. Thermal subsidence and eustasy in the Lower Palaeozoic miogeocline of western North America. Nature 306, 775–779 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/306775a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/306775a0
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