image: GSA Special Paper 445 -- Deformation and Exhumation at Convergent Margins: The Franciscan Subduction Complex, by Uwe Ring. view more
Credit: Geological Society of America
Boulder, CO, USA – A new Special Paper published by The Geological Society of America on the Franciscan subduction complex of coastal California and its affect on the Coast Range fault zone takes a new tack on explaining how the subduction complex evolved. Says author Uwe Ring of Canterbury University, New Zealand, "Every now and then there has to be someone who does not want to go with the flow, and sometimes even peculiar ideas are not necessarily wrong."
While noting in his preface, "I am fully aware that our ideas on how the Franciscan subduction complex may have evolved tectonically are not accepted by some of our colleagues," Ring goes on to present a clear, well-documented study summarizing absolute finite-strain data from the Franciscan subduction complex and brittle strain data from important faults in and above the complex.
The Franciscan subduction complex formed a long-lived accretionary wedge of Late Jurassic through Oligocene age that fringed the western edge of the North American Cordillera. Because the Franciscan is generally considered a prototypical sediment-rich subduction complex, its tectonic evolution is important for understanding convergent plate margins, and the results outlined in this volume may have broad implications for other subduction-zone settings.
Individual copies of the volume may be purchased through the Geological Society of America online bookstore http://rock.geosociety.org/Bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=9&pID=SPE445 or by contacting GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Book editors of earth science journals/publications may request a review copy by contacting Jeanette Hammann, jhammann@geosociety.org.
Deformation and Exhumation at Convergent Margins: The Franciscan Subduction Complex
Uwe Ring (editor)
Geological Society of America Special Paper 445
2008, 61 pages, US$40.00, GSA member price US$28.00
ISBN 978-0-8137-2445-4