English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

The causes of Cenozoic uplift of the Colorado Plateau, southwestern USA, are strongly debated, though most hypotheses acknowledge the importance of northwest-directed subduction of the Farallon oceanic plate beneath North America since c. 100 Ma. Existing thermomechanical models suggest that the Farallon slab underthrust the proto-plateau region at ~200 km depth, removing the basal portions of its subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM) root, although such small-volume subduction erosion cannot fully account for the degree of uplift observed today. Here we show via petrological modeling of lawsonite-bearing eclogite xenoliths exposed in diatremes in the center of the plateau that the Farallon slab surface penetrated through the proto-plateau SCLM at much shallower depths (~120 km) than these previous estimates, allowing shear-removal of ~80 km of SCLM – a volume up to three-times greater than previously suggested. This removal led to asthenospheric upwelling and isostatic rebound of the plateau region during the late Cretaceous to the Eocene. We posit that similar shear-removal of SCLM likely played a major role in inhibiting cratonic growth and stabilization in the Neoarchean and Paleoproterozoic – when low-angle subduction of oceanic lithosphere was more prevalent than today – accounting for the atypically thin roots existing below many ancient cratons worldwide.

Catastrophic shear-removal of subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath the Colorado Plateau by the subducted Farallon slab