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GSA Special Paper 513

Fast-paced and complex extensional and contractional deformation, between 170 and 148 Ma, along the margin of Laurasia coincides with ocean-floor formation within basins, such as the central Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Valley of California, the Mediterranean Sea, and the southern Caspian Sea. Along the western margin of North America, numerous basins that formed in the Middle Jurassic and continued throughout the Late Jurassic, contemporaneous and co-genetic with igneous activity, are kinematically compatible with sinistral strike-slip fault movement, suggesting a transtensional origin. Comparable basins are postulated to have developed in Russia, Mongolia, China, and Iran. Domains of contractional deformation, attributed to transpression, such as the Blue Mountains (Oregon, USA), the Chersky collision belt (Siberia, Russia), and the early Yinshan fold-thrust belt (northern China), interrupt the belt of Late Jurassic basins. The tectonic evolution that is characterized by linkages among faults and fault-related structures along the margin of the Laurasian plate may be interpreted as recording plate rotation during the breakup of Pangea.