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Jessica Meek
Professor MacLean
18 April 2016
GEO 1220/1225
Structures, Stratigraphy, and Sedimentation of the Cenozoic
Cenozoic Structural Geology.
Being that this is the era that we are currently living it, Earth throughout the era
resembles much of the world today. Many of the formations that were involved in the creating of
present day Earth can be traced back into the Mesozoic. Three main Orogenys can be included
in the Cordillera Orogeny, the last two being the Sevier and Laramide Orogeny. The Sevier
Orogeny was mostly a Craterous event that impacted the western edge of the North American
continent. Reaching from Alaska to Mexico, this orogeny was a form of reactivated faulting of
the Nevadan Orogeny. During the Mesozoic the Farallon Plate began to sub duct underneath of
the North American continent, forming a subduction zone of oceanic crust underneath of
continental crust. In addition to the activity that resulted from the Sevier Orogeny, the Laramide
Orogeny that started in the middle of the Mesozoic to the early Cenozoic was the last of the
Cordillera Orogeny. Located to the east of the Sevier Orogeny, the Laramide effected the land
that makes up the present day Rocky Mountain areas of the United States.
Unlike other orogonies, the Laramide occurred very inland from the convergent boundary
that was located in the Pacific Ocean, very few volcanism events were created, and instead of
creating compression the orogeny created a series of uplifts that created fault boundaries in the
surrounding regions. With the new global features created by the Sevier and Laramide
Orogonies, the continued subduction of the Farallon Plate continued in a subhorizontal angle

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underneath of the North American continental crust.
The very few volcanism effects that were resulted
from the Laramide Orogeny broke through the
extension of oceanic crust beneath the surface,
referred to later in the paper as lithospheric rollback.
The result of basement core uplift from this newly
formed volcanic activity it created a new subduction
zone of the Farallon plate. Basement core uplift is the
outcome of continental compression of the
lithosphere to rise in an upward mannerism instead of
common transform and thrust faulting. Other examples
of basement uplift include the Kaibab Monocline, the

Figure 1. Displays the main orogonies

to affect ad build the North and Central
American Continent.

Tetons, Colorado Front Range, and the Bear Tooth Mountains.

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This subduction of the Farallon plate was still reaching far beneath the North American
western continental edge, but the approximate timing of the Farallon-Pacific boundary collision
is accredited to the Cenozoic
(Figure 1). Along this coastal
range, the subduction brought the
transform boundaries further west
in the pacific closer and closer
until creating a triple junction.
Triple junctions are the
Figure 2. Shows the progressive movement of the Pacific and Farallon Plates subducting beneath the
North American Plate. Also helps visualize the needed geological events to form the San Andres Fault.

combination of three active boundaries. In this instance, the transform boundary and subduction
zone helped to create a trench, the trench was an area of lower lithosphere near the subduction
plate (Figure 2). The instability of the triple junction didnt allow for it to exist for a very long
time period but ultimately aided in the growing of the San Andres Fault in California that can be
seen today.
With the activity happening on the western North American coast with the PacificFarallon Plate, the area inland from the boundary was forming a geologic regions known as
Marysvale volcanic field. Inland from the Sierra Nevada Batholith, the saturation of the crust
caused the separation of the oceanic lithosphere and the continental lithosphere. This is referred
to as a rollback, as it is the rolling back and away from one lithospheric earth from another
(Figure 3). Occurrence of the rollback aided in the volcanic activity that can be found in the
Rocky Mountains and helped to create the new subduction zone spoken of earlier in this essay.

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Figure 3. Displays an illustration of

the process that takes place when a
trench is formed and rolling back of
oceanic plate takes place.

Figure 4. Arial very of the Marysvale Volcanic

Field (area inside the dotted line) and the
Markagunt Landslide (area shaded in with grey)
in Bryace Canon.

The

Marysvale volcanic field can be seen in the Bryce

Canyon are by the large dome intrusion that rose from
lower lithosphere and then remained hidden by covering
depositional layers, once eroded away the intrusion was
exposed to erosional environments as well. The intrusion can also be connected to the Markagunt
gravity slide. Displacement of the Turshar Mountains that was caused by the forming volcanic
swell only needed to be uplifts a few degrees for the gravitational pull of the Earth the pull the
depositional layerings downhill. Main layerings involved in the sliding event were the Carmel
formation and the Claron formation. The downward slide helped to form formations in the
Southern Utah region and is the only geologic landslide of such size. Both geologic events can
be seen in relation to one another in Figure 4.
Basin and Range Extension is the region of Nevada, adjacent states and to Mexico, where
there are a large collection of north-south yielding mountain ranges that have many valley and

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basin found between said mountain ranges (Figure 5). Much of these can be accredited to the
uplift caused by the Laramide Orogeny, in the same time
period much of the Colorado Plateau came into existence.
Sediments deposited during the times Utah, Colorado,
Arizona, and New Mexico were underwater were then
uplifted and exposed by the Laramide Orogeny. Both these
geologic formations can be seen in the western North
American portion of the continent today.

Cenozoic Stratigraphy and Sedimentation.

The erosion of the Colorado Plateau aided in the
carving of the Claron Formation in Utah. The Claron
Formation is the major sediment layering in Bryce

Figure 5. Depicts the area covered by the Basin

and Range Extension and surrounding geological
elements that resulted from the extension.

Canyon National Park. This layer is important to the geologic community because of the
formation of Hoodoos (Figure 6). These rare formations allow for those studying the
mathematics of geology. Because of the drainage of the Pera River it weakened and fractured the
remaining sediment forms. Fractures in these Hoodoos can be used to calculate the compression
that the Claron Formation had undergone in the past, it can also be used when learning of the
depositional environment the formation was deposited in. After the rifting and uplift the
Laramide Orogeny created, the Colorado Plateau was exposed to the erosional environment of
the Cenozoic. Much of the globe in the Cenozoic was not rich in vegetation, but wind swept
dunes. The Pera River ran through the plateau formation and eroded the sediments through the
Bryce Canyon Region. This was a very strong and fast paced river and has left many other

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landmarks in the four corner state of the United
States.

Figure 6. Picture of Claron

Formation Hoodoos that can be
found in Bryce Canyon National
Park.

Figure 7. Illustration of the four corner

states and the area of which is the
Colorado Plateau covers.