Post-Laramide removal of the Farallon slab, western United States

Abstract

I propose that post-Laramide removal of the subhorizontally subducting Farallon slab occurred by buckling downward along an approximately east-northeast–trending axis. This process was accomplished by a tearing or necking separation of the subducted slab near the northern and southern boundaries of the United States and propagation of the separated edges toward the central axis of downwelling, accompanied by aesthenosphic upwelling behind the trailing edges. Initial buckling probably began near 50 Ma, and slab removal was complete by 20 Ma. This model is based primarily on the space-time evolution of the “ignimbrite flare-up” (a major mid-Tertiary igneous event of mantle origin), which involved two propagating fronts of initiation of volcanism that followed the proposed motions of the separated slab edges as they converged on central Nevada from the north and southeast. Post-Laramide uplift, extension, establishment of the Cascadia subduction zone, and active magmatism may be consequences of lithosphere-scale modifications caused by the Laramide removal of the slab and the resulting asthenospheric upwelling.