Cenozoic topographic and climatic response to changing tectonic boundary conditions in Western North America

This study presents an oxygen isotopic record from the Paleocene to the Pliocene based on the analysis of predominantly paleosol carbonate from intermontane basins in southwestern Montana and eastern Idaho. δ18O values of calcite decrease by 7 to 10‰ between ∼ 50 and 47 Ma in southwestern Montana and Idaho most likely as a result of an increase in elevation of 2.5 to 3.5 km. This rise in elevation is roughly contemporaneous with the emplacement of the nearby Challis Volcanics, and the formation of metamorphic core complexes in the hinterland of the Sevier thrust belt. Moreover, when compared to previous oxygen isotopic studies that show oxygen isotopic shifts of similar magnitude occurring later (in the late Eocene to early Oligocene in northeastern Nevada, and late Oligocene to Miocene in southern Nevada), the results of this study add to a growing body of evidence for a spatial and temporal migration of high surface elevations from north to south in the Great Basin of western United States. This surface uplift history supports tectonic models calling for north to south removal of the Farallon slab or delamination of the mantle lithosphere.