Post-jurassic tectonism in eastern north America

Abstract

Eastern North America has been considered a tectonically inactive region since the Jurassic Period. This view has been enhanced by global tectonic theory, which has labeled eastern North America as the passive trailing margin of the continent, which is now situated in an intraplate position of the North American plate. Such an interpretation does not provide an obvious explanation for any type of tectonism in an intraplate position. However, evidence now suggests that eastern North America experienced significant tectonism since the Jurassic Period. Evidence supporting such an interpretation includes: large earthquakes, widespread post-Jurassic faulting and volcanism, extensive downwarping of the continental margin accompanied by sedimentation of geosynclinal proportions, and the Appalachian mountain range that has remained topographically high for long periods of time since the end of the Paleozoic era. It is proposed that this tectonism is due to a number of interacting plate relationships, beginning in the Early Cretaceous, which retarded the westward movement of the North American continent. The slowing down of the North American plate produced a situation where sub-crustal flow became faster than continental crustal movement resulting in drag forces below the eastern margin of the continent. Accretion along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge gradually increased compressive stress on eastern North America. The first retardation to crustal movement began in the Cretaceous Period when the Alaska-Kolyma arm of the North American plate collided with Eurasia. From the Late Cretaceous through the Eocene, two major plate reorganizations in the Atlantic Ocean may have caused extensive faulting and widespread volcanism in eastern North America. From the Eocene to the Present, a number of additional retarding obstructions to the westward movement of the North American plate include: overriding the East Pacific Rise, triple junctions, hot spots, complex subduction relationships, and new spreading in opposing directions. The effects of these obstructions were in part cumulative through time and responsible for substantially slowing down the North American Plate. This model accounts for the evolution of post-Jurassic deformation in eastern North America, and indicates that it is still a tectonically active region.