Laurentia Gondwana Connections Before Pangea

Explores the tectonics interaction among the exotic terrians between Laurentia and Southwest Gondwana. The authors reveal data that sheds light on pre-Pangea connections between Laurentia and Southwest Gondwana. These data concern the presence of Ollenelus and associated fauna in the Precordillera of central Western South America; the common early Paleozoic paleomagnetic data, the presence of a large early Paleozoic carbo nate platform distinct from the Southwest Gondwanan clastic platforms associated with glacial deposits, and the exotic nature of the Grenville basement of this platform.

The Australide orogen, the southern hemisphere Neoproterozoic to Mesozoic terrane accretionary orogen that forms the palaeo-Pacific margin of Gondwana, is one of the largest and longest-lived orogens on Earth. This book brings together a series of reviews and multidisciplinary research papers that comprehensively cover the Australides from the Tasman orogen of eastern Australia to the Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic orogens of South America, taking in New Zealand and Antarctica along the way. It deals with the evolution of the southern Gondwana margin, as it grew during a series of terrane accretion episodes from the late Proterozoic through to final fragmentation in mid-Cretaceous times. Global perspectives are given by comparison with the Palaeozoic northern Gondwana margin and documentation of world-wide terrane accretion episodes in the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic and mid-Cretaceous. The Tasmanides of eastern Australia, and the terrane histories of New Zealand and southern South America are given comprehensive up-to-date reviews.

Surveys the origin of continents, and the accretion and breakup of supercontinents through earth history. This book also shows how these processes affected the composition of seawater, climate, and the evolution of life.

Some 75 years after the visionary work of Wegener and du Toit, Neoproterozoic to Mesozoic geological correlations between South America and Africa are re-examined in the light of plate tectonics and modern geological investigation (structural and metamorphic studies, stratigraphic logging, geochemistry, geochronology and palaeomagnetism). The book presents both reviews and new research relating to the shared Gondwana origins of countries facing each other across the South Atlantic Ocean, especially Brazil, Argentina, Cameroon, Nigeria, Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

This book describes the Mesozoic to Cenozoic evolution of the Chilean and Argentinean Andes. The book is structured from a historical perspective concentrating on specific processes explained in each chapter. The chapters cover dynamic subsidence; neotectonics; magmatism; long and short term deformation; spatial development of ancient orogenic processes that control Andean reactivations; relation between ocean bathymetry and deformation. Sources of detritus through Andean construction are discussed by specialists from both sides of the Southern Andes. This book provides up-to-date reviews, maps, evolutionary schemes and extensive reference lists useful for geoscientists and students in Earth Science fields.

Consisting of papers that have appeared recently in International Geology Review, Middle American Terranes, Potential Correlatives, and Orogenic Processes focuses on Middle American terranes in which tectonic processes, including flat-slab subduction, for orogenic development are examined at various times since the late Mesoproterozoi

This text brings together multidisciplinary research and review papers on the Lower Palaeozoic geology of the Sierras Pampeanas and the Precordillera of central west Argentina. It deals with the final stages of assembly of the supercontinent of Gondwana and its tectonic interaction with Laurentia (the North American continent of today).