Fission-track grain-age distributions for detrital zircon are used in this study to resolve the late Cenozoic exhumation history of the European Alps. Grain-age distributions were determined for six sandstone samples and one modern river sediment sample, providing a record from 15 Ma to present. All samples can be traced to sources in the Western and Central Alps. The grain-age distributions are dominated by two components, P1 (8-25 Ma) and P2 (16-35 Ma), both of which show steady lag times (cooling age minus depositional age), with an average of 7.9 m.y. for P1 and 16.7 m.y. for P2. These results indicate steady-state exhumation in the source region at rates of ϳ0.4-0.7 km/m.y. since at least 15 Ma.

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The Washington Cascade Range is a complex, polygenetic mountain range that dominates the topographic, climatic, and cultural configurations of Washington State. Although it has been the locus of ongoing arc magmatism since the Eocene, most of the range is distinct from the southern part of the arc in Oregon and California in that bedrock uplift has produced high surface elevations and topographic relief, rather than volcanic burial or edifice construction. (U-Th)/He and fission-track ages of bedrock samples on the east flank of the range record relatively rapid cooling in the early Tertiary, but slow exhumation rates (ϳ0.2 km/m.y.) through most of the Oligocene. Samples on the west flank suggest rapid cooling in the late Miocene (8-12 Ma), and age variations in vertical transects are consistent with a pulse of rapid exhumation (0.5-1.0 km/m.y.) at that time. Apatite He ages as young as 1-5 Ma in several areas suggest that high cooling and possibly exhumation rates persist locally. Accelerated exhumation rates ca. 10 Ma are also observed in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia and southeast Alaska, ϳ1500 km to the north, suggesting a large-scale mechanism for the exhumation pulse at that time.