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GSA Today, v. 9, no. 10, October 1999
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Table of Contents
Science Article: (View Abstract)
Refining Rodinia: Geologic Evidence for the Australia-Western
U.S. connection in the Proterozoic
by Karl E. Karlstrom, Michael L. Williams, James McLelland, John W. Geissman, Karl-Inge Åhäll
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Refining Rodinia: Geologic Evidence for
the Australia–Western U.S. connection in the Proterozoic
Karl E. Karlstrom, Department of Earth
and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131
Stephen S. Harlan, Department
of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131.
Present address: P.O. Box 25046, MS 980, Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225
Michael L. Williams, Department
of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003-5820
James McLelland, Department
of Geology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346
John W. Geissman, Department of Earth
and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131
Karl-Inge Åhäll, Earth Sciences
Centre, Göteborg University, Box 460, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden
ABSTRACT
Prior to the Grenvillian continent-continent collision at about 1.0 Ga, the southern
margin of Laurentia was a long-lived convergent margin that extended from Greenland
to southern California. The truncation of these 1.8–1.0 Ga orogenic belts
in southwestern and northeastern Laurentia suggests that they once extended farther.
We propose that Australia contains the continuation of these belts to the southwest
and that Baltica was the continuation to the northeast. The combined orogenic
system was comparable in length to the modern American Cordilleran or Alpine-Himalayan
systems. This plate reconstruction of the Proterozoic super-continent Rodinia
called AUSWUS (Australia–Southwest U.S.) differs from the well-known SWEAT
(Southwest U.S.–East Antarctic) reconstruction in that Australia, rather
than northern Canada, is adjacent to the southwestern United States. The AUSWUS
reconstruction is supported by a distinctive "fingerprint" of geologic similarities
and tectonic histories between Australia and the southwestern United States from
1.8 to 0.8 Ga, and by a better agreement between 1.45 and 1.0 Ga paleomagnetic
poles for Australia and Laurentia.
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