Abstract
During Cenozoic time, the Colorado Plateau was raised about 2 km above sea level. The most-recent and best-documented uplift of the plateau (;1 km) has been concentratedatitssouthwestmarginbetween6 and 1 Ma, whereas the eastern Colorado Plateau may have been at high elevations sinceEocenetime.Tobetterunderstandthe recent tectonic activity at the southwest marginoftheColoradoPlateau,wecompile detailed crustal thickness and density informationfromseismicandgravitydatafor a region that includes northwest Arizona and the southern tip of Nevada. This information is used to isolate the mantle contribution to uplift. Wefind that there is relatively low density mantle underlying the southernmarginoftheplateauinnorthwest Arizona, which could result from about 60‐80 km of thinning of the dense mantle lithosphere combined with about 100 &Cof heating through a 100-km-thick mantle layer. The available estimates from earthquake-source seismology in or near the studyareaarecompatiblewiththisestimate of lithospheric thinning. We speculate that uplift may result from subduction-related thinning of the continental lithosphere.
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