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John Frederick Dewey FRS (born 22 May 1937) is a British structural geologist and a strong proponent of the theory of plate tectonics, building upon the early work undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s. He is widely regarded as an authority on the development and evolution of mountain ranges.
Dewey was educated at Bancroft's School and Queen Mary and Imperial College at the University of London where he was awarded a BSc and PhD in geology. Following a period as lecturer at the University of Manchester (1960–64), the University of Cambridge (1964–1970) and Memorial University of Newfoundland (1971), Dewey was appointed Professor of Geology at the State University of New York at Albany. [1] During this period he produced a series of classic papers centred on the history of the Appalachians in Newfoundland as well as the Scottish and Irish Caledonides. In later years, his research has concentrated upon producing a model to describe the development and orogenic history of the Himalayan mountain range.
Dewey returned to the UK in 1982 as Professor of Geology at the University of Durham, a position he held for four years. As with another Durham geologists before him, Lawrence Wager, Dewey was appointed Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford (and Fellow of University College) in 1986, a position he held until his resignation in 2000. Since then he has returned to the US as Professor of Geology at the University of California at Davis, although he maintains a position as Senior Research Fellow at University College, Oxford.
John Dewey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) in 1985 and has received numerous medals and awards, notably the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London (that society's highest award) in 1999 [2] and the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America (1992). Dewey was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1997, [3] is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and is a Corresponding Member of the Australian Academy of Science (2011). [4]
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Obduction is a geological process whereby denser oceanic crust is scraped off a descending ocean plate at a convergent plate boundary and thrust on top of an adjacent plate. When oceanic and continental plates converge, normally the denser oceanic crust sinks under the continental crust in the process of subduction. Obduction, which is less common, normally occurs in plate collisions at orogenic belts or back-arc basins.
The Iapetus Ocean existed in the late Neoproterozoic and early Paleozoic eras of the geologic timescale. It lay in the southern hemisphere, between the paleocontinents of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia. The ocean disappeared with the Acadian, Caledonian and Taconic orogenies, when these three continents joined to form one big landmass called Euramerica. The "southern" Iapetus Ocean has been proposed to have closed with the Famatinian and Taconic orogenies, meaning a collision between Western Gondwana and Laurentia.
Avalonia was a microcontinent in the Paleozoic era. Crustal fragments of this former microcontinent underlie south-west Great Britain, southern Ireland, and the eastern coast of North America. It is the source of many of the older rocks of Western Europe, Atlantic Canada, and parts of the coastal United States. Avalonia is named for the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland.
The Antler orogeny was a tectonic event that began in the early Late Devonian with widespread effects continuing into the Mississippian and early Pennsylvanian. Most of the evidence for this event is in Nevada but the limits of its reach are unknown. A great volume of conglomeratic deposits of mainly Mississippian age in Nevada and adjacent areas testifies to the existence of an important tectonic event, and implies nearby areas of uplift and erosion, but the nature and cause of that event are uncertain and in dispute. Although it is known as an orogeny, some of the classic features of orogeny as commonly defined such as metamorphism, and granitic intrusives have not been linked to it. In spite of this, the event is universally designated as an orogeny and that practice is continued here. This article outlines what is known and unknown about the Antler orogeny and describes three current theories regarding its nature and origin.
The Taconic orogeny was a mountain building period that ended 440 million years ago (Ma) and affected most of modern-day New England. A great mountain chain formed from eastern Canada down through what is now the Piedmont of the east coast of the United States. As the mountain chain eroded in the Silurian and Devonian periods, sediment spread throughout the present-day Appalachians and midcontinental North America.
The Caledonian orogeny was a mountain-building cycle recorded in the northern parts of the British Isles, the Scandinavian Caledonides, Svalbard, eastern Greenland and parts of north-central Europe. The Caledonian orogeny encompasses events that occurred from the Ordovician to Early Devonian, roughly 490–390 million years ago (Ma). It was caused by the closure of the Iapetus Ocean when the Laurentia and Baltica continents and the Avalonia microcontinent collided.
The Variscan or Hercynianorogeny was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea.
Tanya Atwater is an American geophysicist and marine geologist who specializes in plate tectonics. She is particularly renowned for her early research on the plate tectonic history of western North America.
Burrell Clark Burchfiel was an American structural geologist. Born in Stockton, California, he earned his Ph.D. in 1961 at Yale University. His first academic appointment was to the Geology department at Rice University. He was the Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Geology at MIT. Research interests: Origin, development, and structural evolution of the continental crust. His later work involved study of the geological history and evolution of the Tibetan plateau.
The Wrangellia Terrane is a crustal fragment (terrane) extending from the south-central part of Alaska and along the Coast of British Columbia in Canada. Some geologists contend that Wrangellia extends southward to Oregon, although this is not generally accepted.
Laurentia or the North American Craton is a large continental craton that forms the ancient geological core of North America. Many times in its past, Laurentia has been a separate continent, as it is now in the form of North America, although originally it also included the cratonic areas of Greenland and the Hebridean Terrane in northwest Scotland. During other times in its past, Laurentia has been part of larger continents and supercontinents and consists of many smaller terranes assembled on a network of early Proterozoic orogenic belts. Small microcontinents and oceanic islands collided with and sutured onto the ever-growing Laurentia, and together formed the stable Precambrian craton seen today.
Sharon Mosher is an American geologist. She did her undergraduate work at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After earning an MSc from Brown University, she returned to the University of Illinois to get her PhD in Geology in 1978. Since 2001 she has held the William Stamps Farish Chair at University of Texas, and, since 2009 she has served as the dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at Texas. In 2013 she became the president of the American Geosciences Institute.
In geology, the term exhumation refers to the process by which a parcel of rock, approaches Earth's surface.
In geology, orogenic collapse is the thinning and lateral spread of thickened crust. It is a broad term referring to processes which distribute material from regions of high gravitational potential energy to regions of low gravitational potential energy. Orogenic collapse can begin at any point during an orogeny due to overthickening of the crust. Post-orogenic collapse and post-orogenic extension refer to processes which take place once tectonic forces have been released, and represent a key phase of the Wilson Cycle, between continental collision and rifting.
The Scandinavian Caledonides are the vestiges of an ancient, today deeply eroded orogenic belt formed during the Silurian–Devonian continental collision of Baltica and Laurentia, which is referred to as the Scandian phase of the Caledonian orogeny. The size of the Scandinavian Caledonides at the time of their formation can be compared with the size of the Himalayas. The area east of the Scandinavian Caledonides, including parts of Finland, developed into a foreland basin where old rocks and surfaces were covered by sediments. Today, the Scandinavian Caledonides underlay most of the western and northern Scandinavian Peninsula, whereas other parts of the Caledonides can be traced into West and Central Europe as well as parts of Greenland and eastern North America.
The Junggar Basin, also known as the Dzungarian Basin or Zungarian Basin, is one of the largest sedimentary basins in Northwest China. It is located in Dzungaria in northern Xinjiang, and enclosed by the Tarbagatai Mountains of Kazakhstan in the northwest, the Altai Mountains of Mongolia in the northeast, and the Heavenly Mountains in the south. The geology of Junggar Basin mainly consists of sedimentary rocks underlain by igneous and metamorphic basement rocks. The basement of the basin was largely formed during the development of the Pangea supercontinent during complex tectonic events from Precambrian to late Paleozoic time. The basin developed as a series of foreland basins – in other words, basins developing immediately in front of growing mountain ranges – from Permian time to the Quaternary period. The basin's preserved sedimentary records show that the climate during the Mesozoic era was marked by a transition from humid to arid conditions as monsoonal climatic effects waned. The Junggar basin is rich in geological resources due to effects of volcanism and sedimentary deposition. According to Guinness World Records it is a land location remotest from open sea with great-circle distance of 2,648 km from the nearest open sea at 46°16′8″N86°40′2″E.
The Superior Craton is a stable crustal block covering Quebec, Ontario, and southeast Manitoba in Canada, and northern Minnesota in the United States. It is the biggest craton among those formed during the Archean period. A craton is a large part of the Earth's crust that has been stable and subjected to very little geological changes over a long time. The size of Superior Craton is about 1,572,000 km2. The craton underwent a series of events from 4.3 to 2.57 Ga. These events included the growth, drifting and deformation of both oceanic and continental crusts.
Cynthia Ebinger is an American geoscientist at Tulane University known for her research on continental rifts and the movement of continental plate boundaries.
David G. Gee was a British and Swedish geologist, who worked in Sweden for most of his career. He is known for his leadership of geological expeditions in the high Arctic and for his initiation and leadership of EUROPROBE.
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