The role of crustal quartz in controlling Cordilleran deformation

Anthony R. Lowry () and Marta Pérez-Gussinyé
Additional contact information
Anthony R. Lowry: Utah State University
Marta Pérez-Gussinyé: Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK

Nature, 2011, vol. 471, issue 7338, 353-357

Abstract: The seeds of tectonic weakness A long-standing mystery in plate tectonics is why certain zones of apparent weakness develop as recurrent locations for dramatic geological activity. Or put more simply, why are mountain ranges where they are? Anthony Lowry and Marta Pérez-Gussinyé show that the abundance of crustal quartz, the weakest mineral in continental rocks, may be a major factor. Using seismic receiver functions, gravity and surface heat flow measurements, they estimate the thickness and seismic velocity ratio (VP/VS) of the continental crust in the western United States. They find a surprising correlation between low crustal VP/VS ratios and both higher lithospheric temperature and Cordilleran deformation. From this they infer that the abundance of crustal quartz may lead to a feedback mechanism that strongly influences continental temperature and deformation.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09912 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:471:y:2011:i:7338:d:10.1038_nature09912

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature09912

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().