Tectonomagmatic evolution of Cenozoic extension in the North America Cordillera.

The spatial and temporal distributions of Cenozoic extension and magmatism in the Cordillera suggest that the onset of major crustal extension at a particular latitude was confined to a relatively narrow belt (<100 km, pre-extension) and followed the onset of intermediate and silicic magmatism by no more than a few Ma. We recognize a correlation between the amount of earlier crustal thickening and Cenozoic extension, and between the length of time after shortening but before extension and the degree to which a given region was intruded by Late Cretaceous plutons.-from Author