THE WILSON CYCLE

The Wilson cycle is an expansion to Wegener's theory of continental drift/plate

tectonics. Wegener theorized that all the continents as they are today were once joined
in single large landmass, Pangea. The Wilson cycle, named after J. Tuzo Wilson who first
proposed it, takes this a step farther--not only were the present continents once joined,
but the process has occurred multiple times throughout the geologic history of the
Earth. There may have been as many as 6-10 occurrences of this cycle since the early
Proterozoic period (see Rodinia).

The Wilson cycle describes ocean basins, and the stages that they go through from
creation to elimination. There are six separate stages of the Wilson cycle:

Embryonic: Thick continental crust blocks the flow of heat, and there is a change
in convection currents of the asthenosphere (the soft plastic layer on which the
continental and ocean plates 'float'). There is an upwelling of magma, which
causes continental rifting to begin. The East African rift valley system is an
example of this process.

Youth: The rift expands as magma continues to rise to the surface and creates
new crust, and water fills the young ocean basin, creating a 'linear ocean' like the
modern Red Sea.

Adolescence: Our new ocean grows wider begins to age. The passive boundaries
between the continent and the oceans are accumulating sediment from the
erosion of the continents. The Atlantic Ocean is one such maturing ocean basin.

Maturity: The weight of accumulating sediments at the margin where continental

crust meets the ocean basin causes depression of the ocean crust. Eventually, a
subduction zone is formed, where the thinner, dense ocean crust slips below the
continental crust. See Pacific Ocean as an example of this stage in ocean
development.

Old Age: Accretionary wedges are formed as sediments are scraped off the
subducting ocean crust which creates a tectonic crest which can form offshore
island arcs. The ocean basin continues to narrow. This terminal stage of
development is exemplified by the Mediterranean Sea.

Death: All of the oceanic crust that separated the two masses of continental
crust has been subducted, and the continents collide. This collision causes a
mountain range to form along the collision- a suture. Examples of this type of
landform are abundant, and include the Indus-Yarlung Zangbo suture in the
Himalayas where India collided with Asia, and the Ural mountains which mark the
collision of the Asian landmass with Europe.

This theory is an attempt to explain the presence of ancient orogenic belts, or zones that
have undergone tectonic compression. The Appalachian Mountains are one of these
orogenic belts that are evidence of the Wilson cycle- a collisional mountain range whose
age dates to before the theorized breakup of Pangea, therefore there must have been
separate continents to collide before the supercontinent's existence.

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