Orocline
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An orocline — from the Greek words for "mountain" and "to bend" — is a bend or curvature of an orogeneic (mountain building) belt imposed after it was formed.[1] The term was introduced by S. Warren Carey in 1955 in a paper setting forth how complex shapes of various orogenic belts could be explained by actual bending, and that understanding this provided "the key to understanding the evolution of the continents".[2] Carey showed that in a dozen cases where such bends were undone the results were substantially identical with continental reconstructions deduced by other means.[3] Recognition of oroclinal bending provided strong support to the subsequent theory of plate tectonics.
Notes
References
- Carey, S. Warren (1955), "The Orocline Concept in Geotectonics, Part I", Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 89: 255–288.
See also
- Van der Voo, Rob (December 2004), "Paleomagnetism, Oroclines, and Growth of the Continental Crust", GSA Today 14 (12): 4–9, doi:10.1130/1052-5173(2004)014<4:POAGOT>2.0.CO;2.
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