Tertiary history of the Pacific Northwest is closely tied to that of the Columbia River Flood Basalt (CRB) events. The region is, geologically, one of the least well understood parts of the continental United States.
Throughout the Neogene, the Columbia Basin and surrounding terrains appear to have been shaped not by horizontal tectonic forces, but by deep dynamic forcing, driving apparent “vertical tectonics.” This class of phenomena appears to be at odds with the traditional tenets of plate tectonics, and yet may prove to be ubiquitous geologic processes worldwide. Many of the processes described here are
unique to volcanically-active regions, such as those affected by CRB eruptions and deposition.
In the following chapters I will discuss several physical mechanisms by which lithosphere can deform in the absence of horizontal tectonic stress. These include analyses of the mechanisms associated with metamorphic densification, rheologic transformation owing to magmatic intrusions, and the dynamics of lithospheric delamination.
All code and documentation to reproduce the results presented here can be found in the supplemental files included with this dissertation. Appendices A and B document the purpose, usage, and functionality of each supplementary file.
This dissertation includes previously published and unpublished coauthored material.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uoregon.edu/oai:scholarsbank.uoregon.edu:1794/24526 |
| Date | 30 April 2019 |
| Creators | Perry-Houts, Jonathan |
| Contributors | Humphreys, Eugene |
| Publisher | University of Oregon |
| Source Sets | University of Oregon |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Rights | Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0-US |
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