Late Cenozoic uplift of Denali and its relation to relative plate motion and fault morphology
Fitzgerald PG, Stump E, Redfield TF. 1993. Late Cenozoic uplift of Denali and its relation to relative plate motion and fault morphology. Science. 259(5094):497-499
Apatite fission-track analysis of samples that cover a 4-kilometer vertical section from the western flank of Denali (Mount McKinley), North America's highest mountain, suggests that the mountain massif was formed by rapid uplift (>1 kilometer per million years) beginning ~6 million years ago (Ma). Uplift was a result of the morphology of the Denali fault and a change in motion of the Pacific plate with respect to North America at ~5 Ma, which created opposing tangentiial vectors of relative movement along the fault and forced the intervening crustal blocks upward.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Fitzgerald, Paul; Stump, Edmund; Redfield, Thomas
- Units
- CAKN , DENA , WRD
- Keywords
- Alaska, Apatite, Cenozoic, Denali, Denali Fault, Faults, fission track dating, Geochronology, Geology, Mount McKinley, Mount McKinley Quadrangle, Movement, Mt. McKinley, Neogene, Neotectonics, North America, Pacific Plate, phosphates, plate convergence, Plate Tectonics, Pliocene, Southern Alaska, Strike Slip Faults, Tectonics, Tertiary, Uplift, Uplifts, Upper Cenozoic, WRBIB