Interior Baja B.C. : Continuing Rotation on a Diffuse Plate Boundary

Interior Baja B.C. - the Intermontane Belt (IMB) and Yukon-Tanana (YT) terranes of northwestern North America - provide a geological record of the complex interactions between the northeastern Pacific basin plates and craton. Geophysical evidence from earthquake seismology, gravity, global positioning system and heat flow data indicate motion of the IMB terranes toward the craton today. Paleomagnetic data show the YT terrane to be parautochthonous and part of the craton's ramp onto which the IMB terranes were obducted. Conversely the IMB terranes behaved as an allochthonous reasonably-coherent microplate with its own apparent polar wander path. Relative to the craton, the path dictates that: 1) from 0-54 Ma the IMB rotated steadily on the craton's ramp at 0.29±±0.11° /Ma or 16±6° clockwise (CW), consistent with Lithoprobe SNORCLE deep crustal seismic evidence for thin skinned tectonics; 2) from 54 to 102±14 Ma the IMB was offshore and was further rotated by 35±14° CW and translated northward by 8.3±7.0° (915±75 km), consistent with geological estimates for total dextral fault displacement and seafloor plate vectors; and 3) more speculatively, from Early Cretaceous to Early Jurassic, the IMB moved in concert with the craton off the western USA seaboard. This history fits with major geologic events such as extensive Eocene extension in southern British Columbia, development of the 1000 km-long Selwyn-Mackenzie orogenic arc in Yukon, YT terrane exposure on either side of the IMB, etc. Further it requires continuing crust-mantle interactions that extend some hundreds of kilometers into the craton today.