Antler orogeny

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The Antler orogeny is a mountain-building episode that is named for Antler Peak, at Battle Mountain, Nevada. The orogeny extensively deformed Paleozoic rocks of the Great Basin in Nevada and western Utah during Late Devonian and Early Mississippian time. In the late Devonian, the Antler volcanic island arc, approaching the west coast of North America, which was a passive margin with deep embayments, river deltas and estuaries, in today's Idaho and Nevada, finally reached the steep slope of the continental shelf and began to uplift deep water deposits [1].

Its main expression is the emplacement of eugeosynclinal western rocks over miogeosynclinal eastern rocks along the Roberts Mountains Thrust. In other words, the colliding Antler terrane shoved sediments that had been deposited in deep water over the continental shelf to form the Antler orogeny. Minor orogenic pulses followed the main event, extending into the Permian. It is broadly contemporary with the Acadian orogeny of eastern North America.

[edit] References

• Geologic history of Western US: with maps
• Linda B. McCollum and Michael B. McCollum, "Research within the Antler and Sonoma Orogens, Northwestern Nevada, 1983-1993"
• Dictionary of Geological Terms, 3rd. Edition,1984, Robert L. Bates and Julia A. Jackson, Eds., prepared by The American Geological Institute