Relating Major Surface Processes to the Deep Earth — The Importance of the Miocene

Many global scale tectonic, oceanic and climate changes began in the Tertiary with global tectonics as the underlying driving force and changed the world. In full flower by the beginning of the Middle Miocene around 16 Ma, these changes continued through the Late Miocene into the present so we can firmly say that most of our modern world, continental glaciations excepted, began in the Middle and Late Miocene. We summarize in a flow diagram how the major earth surface processes active in the Miocene are related to the Deep Earth as understood by recent advances in seismic tomography. This 11 Ma interval had two global orogenic zones, the Alpine-Tethyan orogen from Gibraltar across southern Asia into Vietnam and around the Pacific Rim, both crustal expressions of downwellings taking place, especially in the upper mantle. These downwellings are balanced by upwellings in the lower mantle in and on the rim of the African and Pacific superplumes, which are large, low-shear velocity provinces; part of the rising plumes originated from the most extensively melted regions of the core-mantle boundary layer, D", where heat flow from the outer core is highest. Together these up-and downwellings indicate that mantle convection extended, at least periodically, through the whole mantle and reflected lateral variations in convection and heat flow in the cooling and slowly crystallizing outer core. Correlation of mantle convection with surface features is most evident in the uppermost mantle whose dynamic topography is readily reflected by the subsidence and tilting of continents moving toward the downwelling zones. Because they are closely synchronous, these two orogenic belts had enormous consequences for the earth's surface, and because they are close to us in time, they are easy to study and sample. Thus the Miocene is ideal to study for both its many global intra connections and for their link to the Deep Earth. As these two orogenies developed, they changed a global warm water ocean into our present cooler, more fragmented system with a cooler atmosphere. Higher plateaus and uplifted mountains deflected jet streams, expanded rain shadows promoting desertification, favored initial mountain glaciation, and helped cool air temperatures. Upwelling was enhanced on both sides of the Pacific basin, silica production shifted from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, more mud and sand were brought to the ocean causing many passive margins to prograde, and hemipelagic mud became more abundant off continental margins. At the very end of the Miocene even the Mediterranean dried up, as it was isolated by the Alpine orogeny at Gibraltar. Onshore, epeirogenic uplift was widespread both in the interiors of the continents and along many of their margins. Active convergent margins changed continental tilts, completely altered some rivers, and formed new ones with new deltas, some on the other side of a continent. The above changes greatly altered the surface environment and induced many significant changes in flora and fauna and their distribution and have great economic importance. Many of the major geochemical cycles of the ocean and atmosphere also experienced major changes at this time. We posit that the generalizations ultimately emerging from the Miocene will apply to all the Phanerozoic and far back into the Precambrian and that are all tied to Deep Earth.