Late Cretaceous-Cenozoic Accretionary History of Volcanic Arcs and the Bering Oceanic Plateau in the Northwestern in Alaska and Northeastern Russia Constrained by Integration of Geologic, Geophysical, and Radiometric Data

The political division of the northern Pacific plate margin between northeastern Asia in Russia, the Bering Sea, and Alaska and the Aleutian Islands in the USA has slowed the tectonic understanding of this vast, 9,100,000 km2 region. In this study I have compiled geologic, gravity, magnetic, seismic reflection, well logs, heat flow, and radiometric data from on land and submarine crustal provinces of Russia and the USA to define the progressive, Cretaceous-Cenozoic collisional events that have shaped northern margin of the Pacific Plate. These crustal provinces include: 1) Precambrian cratons of northeast Russia and Alaska that act as continental backstops; 2) Cretaceous (96-67 Ma) Okhotsk Andean-style arc that formed along the southern edge of craton and its southward-facing accretionary belt and can be traced from Russia into the southern, accreted terranes of Alaska; 3) Paleogene (55-44 Ma) Olyutorsky intraoceanic arc that can be traced from Kamchatka along the northern and eastern margins of the Bering Sea; 4) the Cretaceous-Eocene (75-44 Ma) Bering oceanic plateau with a 13-17-km-thick crust that collided with Russia at the Koryak Range, terminated magmatism along the Olyutorsky arc at 44 Ma, indented the Alaskan margin along the right-lateral East Bering Sea fault zone, and resulted in a 1200-km southward migration of the plate boundary to the presently active Aleutian volcanic arc. I attribute the prominent bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain at 44 Ma to a major change in Pacific plate motion triggered by the accretion of the Olyutorsky arc and Bering oceanic plateau.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geology

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Ruiz Toro, Estefani Diana 1998-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mann, Paul

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Suppe, John
• Heinlein, Sarah N.

• Bering Sea
• Crustal structure
• Tectonics
• Gravity
• Magnetics

Language dc:language.iso

English

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/21505

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/21505