Geological Structures and Moving Plates

The great classical tectonicians, such as Suess, divergent, convergent, strike-slip, and intraplate. Argand and Wegener, attempted to understand, In the third section of the book, examples of without the benefitofthe platetectonictheory,the classical orogenic belts, of both Phanerozoic and workings of the Earth engine as a whole, and the Precambrian age, are discussed and interpreted in part that deformation playedinthat whole. In my the light of the principles established in the earlier student days, I derived great pleasure and benefit chapters. Thus the Alps are discussed in terms of from De Sitter's textbook on structural geology African- European plate interactions, and the wherethe study of geologicalstructures and major Cordilleran orogenic belt in terms of Mesozoic Earth structure receivedmore or less equal treat­ subduction and subsequent strike-slip collage ment. Sincethen, until relatively recently, there has tectonics. A morespeculative approach isnecessary been a tendency for structural geology to become in the Precambrian examples, where the differing more parochial and inward-looking, despite the tectonicstylesof, for example, the mid-Proterozoic enormous advancesin understanding that the plate Grenville Province and the Archaean greenstone tectonic revolutionhas brought about. I havelong belt terrains may reflect genuine differences in feltthe need, therefore, for a book that wouldgive lithosphere behaviour. students a tectonic overviewin which geological The book is aimed at readers who are already structures and deformation could be seen in their familiar with the basic principles and nomen­ context as byproducts of the plate tectonic system.