RUI: Collaborative Research: Early Cenozoic basin development in the southwestern US: a record of extensional collapse following subduction of an oceanic plateau?

Recent tectonic models of the southwestern US Cordillera suggest that a flattening slab, coupled with the subduction of an oceanic plateau (the conjugate Shatsky Rise: CSR) in Late Cretaceous ? Eocene time (90-40 Ma) led to subduction erosion, extension and associated paleogeographic change. This 3-year research project will test the hy...