Palinspastic restoration of NAVDat and implications for the origin of magmatism in southwestern North America

Simultaneous palinspastic restoration of deformation and volcanism illuminates relationships between magmatism and tectonics in western North America. Using ArcGIS, we retrodeformed the NAVDat (North American Volcanic Database, navdat.geongrid.org) using the western North America reconstruction of McQuarrie and Wernicke (2005). From these data sets we quantitatively compare rates of magmatism and deformation and evaluate the age, composition, and migration of Cenozoic volcanism from 36 Ma to present. These relationships are shown in a series of palinspastic maps as well as animations that highlight migrating extension and volcanism with time. Western North America is grouped into eight different regions with distinct relationships between strain and volcanism to evaluate competing hypotheses regarding the relationship of extension to continental magmatism. A first‐order observation from this study is that magmatism throughout the Basin and Range appears to be primarily driven by plate boundary effects, notably subducting and foundering slabs as well as slab windows. Exceptions include the Yellowstone hotspot system along the northern border of our study area and late‐stage (<8 Ma) passive, extension‐related asthenospheric upwelling along the eastern and western margins of the Basin and Range. The palinspastic reconstructions presented here highlight that the classic, high‐angle, Basin and Range faulting that comprises most of the physiographic Basin and Range Province commenced during a magmatic lull. More broadly, with the exception of the Rio Grande rift we find that pulses of magmatism lag the onset of extension. These observations largely contradict the active rifting model where magmatism triggers Basin and Range extension.