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MacNiocaill, C. and Ryan, P.D. Continental Tectonics.

London (Geological Society, Special Publication 164), 1999, x + 341 pp. Price £75.00 or US $125.00. ISBN 1 86239 051 7.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

This Special Publication by the Geological Society on Continental Tectonics derives from a conference in Oxford to mark the 60^th birthday of John F. Dewey in 1997. The volume contains 14 papers arranged into four sections concerned with processes in closing oceans/arc complexes, collisional orogeny, orogenic collapse/extensional tectonics and continental rifting.

The introductory paper by Ryan and MacNiocaill begins by explaining why continental tectonics is a complex discipline and how their understanding needs an integrated approach. The authors then review some of the current controversies in continental tectonics and attempt to show how the contributions in this volume relate to them. In the following paragraphs, the editors summarize the main points made by each of the contributions in the four sections.

The first of the two papers concerned with processes in arc complexes/closing oceans by Ballance deals with the evolution of the New Zealand segment of the Tonga-Kermadec-New Zealand volcanic arc. An outline is given of the post 25 Ma history of the N, NE and NW oriented Norfolk-Three Kings, Colville and Northland-Reinga Ridges in the Southwest Pacific. This complexity was inherited from a convergent but amagmatic late Eocene-Oligocene margin situated close to the Pacific-Australia pole of rotation. Magmatism at 25 Ma was triggered by increases in the angle and rates of convergence of the Pacific and Australian plates. Simplification of this system at 15 Ma is argued to have resulted from the rapid SE retreat of the pole of rotation giving a more uniformly orthogonal convergence. The onset of simplification was accompanied by fragmentation of the New Zealand continental crust that continues today. The presently inactive Vening Meinesz Fracture Zone that truncates the Norfolk and Colville Ridges is noted as a structure repeatedly reactivated in the 43–15 Ma interval.

Jolivet et al. consider the relative contributions of slab rollback, . . . [Full Text of this Article]