Toward the global tectonic model: A new hope (part 2)

Abstract

We all sense that ultimately ‘nature’ knows best. While we have tried to impose simple models and ordered processes on the world’s geology, we actually continue to encounter nature’s myriad uniqueness. As a result, we have grown comfortable with the butterfly effect of multiple influences randomly expressed at any scale from hand-sample to plate. We observe subsidence occurring offshore Argentina or Somalia while uplift occurs offshore Namibia and assume this is due to local tectonics acting ineffably and unconnectedly. That a sequence is deposited in a stable depositional regime in Angola while shelf collapse and instability produces the geology observed offshore Namibia is more troubling, but such contrasting tectonics acting simultaneously is again an expression of local plate stresses acting on local geology with non-linear results. This is our experience, so we understand our basin geologies on an isolated basin scale. With no common glue of a process we rely on an understanding of local basin tectonics. And this works but are we missing something?