The reflection Moho beneath the southern Canadian Cordillera

Abstract

The transition from the crust to the mantle beneath the Canadian portion of the North American Cordillera varies in depth, geometry, and tectonic age across the orogen. These variations are rarely spatially related to the positions of morphologic or tectonic belts based on surface geology, nor to nearly 25 km of structural relief identified in outcrop and on seismic reflection data. The Moho in this region is thus interpreted to be a long-lived feature, perhaps as old as Proterozoic in the eastern part of the Cordillera, that probably has been active as a structural boundary during periods of crustal contraction and subsequent crustal stretching. Recognition of the Moho and lower crust as a zone of localized tectonic activity provides a partial explanation for the problem of where regional detachments that underlie the foreland thrust and fold belt go as they project westward to deep structural levels beneath the interior of the orogen: they likely project to the base of the crust, where they flatten and cause imbrication of crustal rocks.