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Collaborative Research: St. Elias Erosion/Tectonics Project (Steep), Peter O. Koons

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This is a multi-disciplinary study to address the evolution of the highest coastal mountain range on Earth - the St. Elias Mountains of southern Alaska and northwestern Canada. This orogen has developed over the past few million years as the Yakutat block, a continental-oceanic terrane, has attempted subduction beneath the eastern end of the Aleutian arc-trench system. The ~500 km-long, 150 km-wide St. Elias mountain range is the product of the dynamic balance between rapid uplift induced by crustal convergence and rapid exhumation by a regional system of large, fast-moving temperate glaciers. Most sediments are deposited either on a broad …