Ancient Landscapes of Western North America

Ron Blakey taught geology for over 37 years at the university level, mostly at NAU in Flagstaff, AZ. His specialty is the sedimentary rocks of the Colorado Plateau and surrounding areas including the Pacific Coast region. He has published well over 50 papers, many as single author, in national and international journals and symposia and two books, one published by Springer (see below). For the last 25 years, he has constructed paleogeographic maps from regional to global scale - these maps appear in many published geological papers, books, monographs, museums, and are used extensively in general education at all levels. His maps are based on the geological literature and are constructed as accurately as possible to mimic satellite views of ancient Earth. Many individual maps represent 40 - 80 or more hours of work each.

Geologic setting of the Cordillera: Introduction to terranes.- Overview of modern landscapes and geology, Western North America.- Proterozoic - origin of continental crust and passive margin history.- Passive margins and broad seaways - Early Pz (Camb-Dev).- First accretion - Antler orogeny (Dev-Miss).- Unstable margin - Marginal Island Arcs and terrane juxtaposition (Miss-Penn).- Second Accretion - Sonoman orogeny (Perm-Tr).- Cordilleran Arc - Sevier orogeny - volcanoes, batholiths, and more terranes (J-K).- Shallow subduction and arc disruption (Paleogene).- Transform margin and crustal extension (Neogene).- Canyons and glaciers - shaping the modern landscape (Pleistocene to Recent).- Special places - where to see the landscapes.- Use of Plaeogeographic maps.- New North American series (whole or cropped to area covered) - broad areas and broad events - to provide broad geologic setting.- Colorado Plateau-SW North America series - regional detail and events of N Mexico, California, Nevada, Western Arizona, Western Utah, Oregon, Idaho.- Global series - broad geologic setting of Western North America through geologic time.