Evidence for the overflow origin of the Grand Canyon

Douglass, John; Gootee, Brian F.; Dallegge, Todd A.; Jeong, Ara; Seong, Yeong Bae; Yu, Byoung Gon

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107361

Cited by 10 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 62 publications

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“…The modern river systems that drain the entire western Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau have developed in the past ∼11 Ma, with the oldest paleoriver deposits beneath the 11 Ma Grand Mesa basalt near Grand Junction, Colorado, in the northeastern Colorado Plateau (Aslan et al 2019). Drainage was presumably internal (Aslan et al 2018) until the river system extended its length southward via a combination of mechanisms such as lake spillover (Douglass et al 2009(Douglass et al , 2020but cf. Dickinson 2013) and groundwater sapping (Crossey et al 2015) through older paleocanyons (Karlstrom et al 2014) and reached the Gulf of California between 4.8 and 4.65 Ma (Crow et al 2021).…”

Section: Landscape Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tectonics of the Colorado Plateau and Its Margins

Karlstrom

Wilgus

Thacker

et al. 2022

Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci.

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The Cenozoic Colorado Plateau physiographic province overlies multiple Precambrian provinces. Its ∼2-km elevation rim surrounds an ∼1.6-km elevation core that is underlain by thicker crust and lithospheric mantle, with a sharp structural transition ∼100 km concentrically inboard of the physiographic boundary on all but its northeastern margin. The region was uplifted in three episodes: ∼70–50 Ma uplift above sea level driven by flat-slab subduction; ∼38–23 Ma uplift associated with voluminous regional magmatism and slab removal, and less than 20 Ma uplift associated with inboard propagation of basaltic magmatism that tracked convective erosion of the lithospheric core. Neogene uplift helped integrate the Colorado River from the Rockies at 11 Ma to the Gulf of California by ∼5 Ma. The sharp rim-to-core transition defined by geological and geophysical data sets suggests a young transient plateau that is uplifting as it shrinks to merge with surrounding regions of postorogenic extension. ▪ The Colorado Plateau's iconic landscapes were shaped during its 70-million-year, still-enigmatic, tectonic evolution characterized by uplift and erosion. ▪ Uplift of the Colorado Plateau from sea level took place in three episodes, the youngest of which has been ongoing for the past 20 million years. ▪ Tectonism across the Colorado Plateau's nearest plate margin (the base of the plate!) is driving uplift and volcanism and enhancing its rugged landscapes. ▪ The bowl-shaped Colorado Plateau province is defined by ongoing uplift and an inboard sweep of magmatism around its margins. ▪ The keel of the Colorado Plateau is being thinned as the North American plate moves southwest through the underlying mantle. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Volume 50 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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