Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic time

120 to 30 million years ago

After the opening of the Gulf of Mexico ceased, South America drifted away from Yucatán, creating a proto-Caribbean gulf that opened eastward into the Atlantic and was separated from the Pacific basin by an east-dipping subduction zone and related volcanic arc near the present location of Central America. Sometime between 80 and 60 million years ago, a large submarine plateau composed of unusually thick oceanic crust (possibly formed in the Pacific basin during initiation about 90 million years ago of a hot spot now located beneath the Galápagos Islands) arrived at the subduction zone opposite the proto-Caribbean gulf. Because the oceanic plateau was too buoyant to be subducted, it began to override the proto-Caribbean gulf, carrying the Antilles volcanic arc on its prow. The plateau—which now floors the Caribbean Sea—continued its penetration into the westward-drifting North and South American plates until the volcanic arc on its northeastern margin (the Greater Antilles) collided with the Bahamas limestone platform sometime between about 60 and 35 million years ago. This collision initiated a reorganization of Caribbean tectonics. The collision zone, notably the island of Cuba, was sheared off the Caribbean Plate and became fixed to the North American Plate. An east-dipping subduction zone was reestablished beneath Central America, detaching the Caribbean Plate from the Pacific. Continued subduction of the central Atlantic lithosphere beneath the eastern part of the Caribbean Plate gave rise to the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc.

Meanwhile, seafloor spreading in the Atlantic basin moved northward: continental separation occurred at about 120 and 100 million years ago on the eastern and northern margins, respectively, of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland; about 90 million years ago in the Labrador Sea; and about 70 million years ago in Baffin Bay and eastern Greenland. Continental breakup in the northern North Atlantic about 70 million years ago was accompanied by voluminous volcanism related to inception of a mantle plume from a hot spot now centred beneath Iceland. Afterward, spreading was concentrated on the eastern side of Greenland along the Reykjanes Ridge. Spreading in the Labrador Sea and in Baffin Bay resulted in the counterclockwise rotation of Greenland around an axis near Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic islands. To the northwest the rotation of Greenland caused widespread folding and faulting of sediments in the Sverdrup Basin between about 70 and 35 million years ago (the Eurekan orogeny). In the western Arctic, far-northern Alaska was relocated from its former position adjacent to the Arctic margin of Canada. There is disagreement as to whether the relocation was accomplished through a counterclockwise rotation or a left-lateral shearing of Arctic Alaska relative to Arctic Canada. Separation of the two began about 92 million years ago and created the oceanic Amerasia basin in its wake.

North America continued to override the Pacific basin, but tectonic activity in the Cordilleras varied in space and time according to the age, angle, obliquity, and relative velocity of the oceanic plates being subducted beneath the continental margin. From about 120 to 80 million years ago, the relative eastward motion of the Pacific floor resulted in crustal accretion and arc magmatism along the western continental margin. Thereafter, the inception of a new oceanic spreading ridge resulted in subduction with a strong northward component of motion in Canada and Alaska. Consequently, the main locus of accretion and arc magmatism shifted to southern Alaska, and strips of previously accreted crust were displaced northward along the western margin of Canada.

In the western United States a broad region of crustal shortening developed as far east as the Rocky Mountains between about 80 and 50 million years ago (the Laramide orogeny). Simultaneously, arc magmatism ceased near the coast but migrated up to 600 miles (950 km) to the east. These effects are attributed to changes in the angle of the subducting slab, which became shallower, coincident with increased subduction velocity and the hypothesized subduction of a buoyant oceanic plateau. A sharp decrease in subduction velocity in the northwestern United States and adjacent Canada between about 60 and 50 million years ago coincided with an end to thrusting in the Rocky Mountains and an episode of crustal extension and melting to the west. In the southwestern United States and Mexico, crustal stretching and melting triggered extensive volcanism between about 40 and 30 million years ago and may have been caused by the collapse or thermal dissipation of the low-angle slab. In general, crustal extension was most evident in areas of earlier crustal thickening, a relationship which suggests that overthickened crust was susceptible to gravitational collapse when plate convergence slowed.