Foreland basin

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A foreland basin is a depressed area of the Earth's crust landward of a young mountain chain, and parallel to it. Created by the same downwarping of the lithosphere that is concurrent with orogenesis, they are quickly filled with sediment eroded from the nearby mountains; first deep-water flysch deposits, then by terrestrial molasse as the basin is filled. Examples of foreland basins abound in Earth history, such as the Devonian Catskill clastic wedge in New York that was related to the Acadian orogeny, as well as the Western Interior Seaway of Cretaceous times.(Stanley, 243, 423, 488-9)

Foreland basins are not to be confused with forearc basins; the latter are seaward of an island arc or mountain chain, and underlaid by oceanic crust, while foreland basins are on the continental side of a mountain chain, and thus on continental crust.(Stanley, 233)

[edit] See also

[edit] Reference

  • Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6
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