Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Story of Geosynclines
The Story of Geosynclines
A cross-section through a typical mountain range looks something like this. As we proceed from the stable
interior of the continent into the mountain range, we encounter a belt of shallow-water marine
sedimentary rocks. These rocks become thicker and more intensely deformed the farther we go into the
mountain range. There are frequently uplifted blocks of deep continental crust, then a belt of quite different
rocks. In the most intensely-deformed and metamorphosed part of the mountain range, the rocks consist of
thick, deep-water marine sedimentary rocks with abundant volcanic rocks. These rocks are often intruded
by batholiths.
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/platetec/geosync.htm[23/08/2015 00:12:32]
The Story of Geosynclines
The diagram above is adapted from a classic 1948 book by Marshall Kay called North American Geosynclines.
It shows an imagined cross-section across the northern Appalachians prior to the Appalachian Orogeny.
I was privileged to know Marshall Kay in graduate school. Kay's book even today contains a wealth of data on
the geology of North American orogenic belts. It is no discredit to Kay that he drew the diagram above
before plate tectonics was widely accepted. When plate tectonics came along, Kay worked very hard at
reinterpreting his ideas in plate tectonic terms, and was actively theorizing and doing field work right up to
his death in 1974.
Around 1970, Robert Dietz took a fresh look at the problem. His approach was to ask, in effect, exactly how
much of the classic geosyncline model do we actually see in the field? We understand the shallow-water
portion of the sedimentary pile pretty well, we see uplifted basement rocks, and a tremendous pile of deep-
water sediments and volcanic rocks, but we really don't see what these rocks are resting on. The diagram
below shows what we actually observe.
Dietz then asked, if we don't see anything that looks like a classical geosyncline, is there something we do
see that looks like what we actually observe in mountain belts? The assemblage of sedimentary rocks looks
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/platetec/geosync.htm[23/08/2015 00:12:32]
The Story of Geosynclines
much like an ordinary continental shelf and slope like we see off the east coast of the United States, as
shown below. Dietz realized that geosynclines really aren't synclines, and dropped the "syn" part to coin the
term geocline.
If subduction begins off such a continental margin, volcanic rocks, mixed with sediment eroded from the
volcanic arc, will be added to the eugeosynclinal part of the embryonic mountain chain.
Terrane Accretion
In the 1970's geologists began to realize there was another way to make a geosyncline; form the two parts
separately and join them later by plate collisions. Much of the Appalachian mio-eugeosyncline pair actually
formed this way.
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/platetec/geosync.htm[23/08/2015 00:12:32]
The Story of Geosynclines
The story of geosynclines is a superb illustration of how scientists can be hampered by conceptual models,
and how returning to the actual data and reinterpreting it can solve a problem. The term "geosyncline" is
still sometimes used simply because it has a widely-understood meaning. Many geologists, recognizing that
geosynclines really aren't synclines, prefer to follow Dietz' usage and speak of geoclines instead.
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/platetec/geosync.htm[23/08/2015 00:12:32]