1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA
2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
3. Department of Geology, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322, USA

Correspondence to: Mousumi Roy¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.R. (Email: mroy@unm.edu).

Abstract

The forces that drove rock uplift of the low-relief, high-elevation, tectonically stable Colorado Plateau are the subject of long-standing debate^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. While the adjacent Basin and Range province and Rio Grande rift province underwent Cenozoic shortening followed by extension⁶, the plateau experienced 2 km of rock uplift⁷ without significant internal deformation^{2, 3, 4}. Here we propose that warming of the thicker, more iron-depleted Colorado Plateau lithosphere^{8, 9, 10} over 35–40 Myr following mid-Cenozoic removal of the Farallon plate from beneath North America^{11, 12} is the primary mechanism driving rock uplift. In our model, conductive re-equilibration not only explains the rock uplift of the plateau, but also provides a robust geodynamic interpretation of observed contrasts between the Colorado Plateau margins and the plateau interior. In particular, the model matches the encroachment of Cenozoic magmatism from the margins towards the plateau interior at rates of 3–6 km Myr^-1 and is consistent with lower seismic velocities¹³ and more negative Bouguer gravity¹⁴ at the margins than in the plateau interior. We suggest that warming of heterogeneous lithosphere is a powerful mechanism for driving epeirogenic rock uplift of the Colorado Plateau and may be of general importance in plate-interior settings.

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