Full Text View The big picture: A lithospheric cross section of
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Search GSA Today A lithospheric cross section constructed within
a 6000-km-long corridor across southern Canada and its margins
at 45–55°N illuminates the assembly of the North American
continent at an unprecedented scale. Based on coordinated,
multidisciplinary research, the profile emphasizes lithospheric-
scale relationships between orogens—plate collisions and
accretions have sequentially stacked orogen upon orogen such
that the older crust forms basement to the next younger. This
large-scale perspective highlights the similarities among
crustal structures produced by orogenic processes despite the
broad range of age from the Mesoarchean to the present.
Heterogeneities in the lithospheric mantle suggest that, in
certain situations, relict subducted or delaminated lithosphere
can remain intact beneath, and eventually within, crat