Mesozoic evolution of exotic terranes and marginal seas, western North America

Ophiolites, the Sierra Nevada, “Cordilleria,” and Orogeny along the Pacific and Caribbean Margins of North and South America

“…They or something like them (e.g., Wilson et al, 1991; see also Jones, 1991) seem, however, to be natural consequences of a western Pacific model for evolution of the eastern Pacific margin. Some general implications can be drawn.…”

“…Hamilton (1963Hamilton ( ,1988 and Jones (1991) both expressed similar ideas, but without accompanying illustrations. In a much undercited paper, Wilson et al (1991) also presented a detailed analysis of the Mesozoic evolution of western North American exotic terranes, including a series of reconstructions for Triassic through Cretaceous time. The hypothesis herein presented is intended also to be "outrageous" in the sense of Davis (1926), in attempting to focus attention on many obscure unsolved problems.…”

Alternative global Cretaceous paleogeography

“…All of the terranes in this region are elongate parallel to the margin, although they are thought to have been emplaced by two different processes. The terranes on the margin of western North America are thought to have moved northward along the continental margin from sites of origin to the south (Wilson et al, 1991). In contrast, the terranes of eastern Asia are usually thought to have originated in the Pacific and been brought to their present sites by motions more or less orthogonal to the present margin (Howell et al, 1985;Wilson et al, 1989a).…”

“…It is assumed that many of the terranes of northwestern North America had been assembled into a single Superterrane I + II before the Cretaceous, and this large block collided with North America causing the Sevier orogeny from 135 to 120 Ma (Wilson et al, 1991). In this A&O file, the bending of the terranes of the Alaskan Peninsula is considered to have occurred between 123 and 90 Ma as a result of the "windshield wiper" motion of the Arctic Alaska-Chukotka Block opening the Canadian Basin is after Lottes (1988, 1989), but the times are poorly constrained; we assumed the motion occurred between 134 and 90 Ma.…”

Evolution of Cretaceous surface current circulation patterns, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico

“…Although numerous tectonic interpretations were reviewed (Smith et al, 1973;Pindell and Dewey, 1982;Anderson and Schmidt, 1983;Burke et al, 1984;Pindell, 1985;Ross and Scotese, 1988;Wilson et al, 1991), only the Pindell and Barrett model provided the details of Caribbean terranes through time. These details were necessary for plotting the dispersion patterns of rudistid bivalves.…”