Was the Laramide orogeny related to subduction of an oceanic plateau?

@article{Livaccari1981WasTL,
  title={Was the Laramide orogeny related to subduction of an oceanic plateau?},
  author={Richard F. Livaccari and Kevin C. Burke and A. M. Cel{\^a}l Şeng{\"o}r},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1981},
  volume={289},
  pages={276-278}
}
Numerous models have been presented to explain the late Cretaceous/early Cenozoic Laramide orogeny, which affected the foreland region of the western cordillera within the US1. The most attractive models invoke low-angle subduction2–4, which can develop for various reasons5,6. Evidence from South America indicates that one such reason may be the subduction of buoyant ocean floor. We here extend the low-angle subduction models by attributing the shallowing of the subduction angle during the… 
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152 Citations

The Laramide Orogeny: What Were the Driving Forces?

The Laramide orogeny is the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene (80 to 55 Ma) orogenic event that gave rise to the Laramide block uplifts in the United States, the Rocky Mountain fold-and-thrust belt in…

Thermal modelling of the Laramide orogeny: testing the flat-slab subduction hypothesis

The role of oceanic plateau subduction in the Laramide orogeny

The cause of the Laramide phase of mountain building remains uncertain. Conceptual models implicate the subduction of either ocean ridges or conjugates of the buoyant Hess or Shatsky oceanic…

Hydrodynamic mechanism for the Laramide orogeny

The widespread presumption that the Farallon plate subducted along the base of North American lithosphere under most of the western United States and ∼1000 km inboard from the trench has dominated…

Laramide Orogenesis Driven by Late Cretaceous Weakening of the North American Lithosphere

This paper investigates the causes of the Late Cretaceous transition from “Sevier” to “Laramide” orogenesis and the spatial and temporal evolution of effective elastic thickness (EET) of the North…

Paleomagnetic dating of fault slip in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA, and its importance to an integrated Laramide foreland strain field

The Laramide orogen of the U.S. Cordillera formed in the latest Cretaceous, and deformation lasted into the earliest Oligocene. Along and proximal to the eastern and northern margins of the Colorado…

Early Inception of the Laramide Orogeny in Southwestern Montana and Northern Wyoming: Implications for Models of Flat‐Slab Subduction

Timing and distribution of magmatism, deformation, exhumation, and basin development have been used to reconstruct the history of Laramide flat‐slab subduction under North America during Late…

Farallon plate dynamics prior to the Laramide orogeny: Numerical models of flat subduction

Mesozoic aseismic ridges on the Farallon Plate and southward migration of shallow subduction during the Laramide Orogeny

We propose that an aseismic ridge of Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age on the Farallon plate was subducted beneath the Unites States Cordillera during the Laramide orogeny. The relative buoyancy…

Mesozoic plate-motion history below the northeast Pacific Ocean from seismic images of the subducted Farallon slab

TLDR
A three-dimensional spherical computer model of mantle convection is used to show that seismic images of the subducted Farallon plate provide strong evidence for a Mesozoic period of low-angle subduction under North America.
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