DRIFT TECTONICS - THE FUNDAMENTAL RHYTHM OF CRUSTAL DRIFT AND DEFORMATION

Abstract

Several years of research on deformational history of the Alps and their Central European foreland led to the development of new models for the driving mechanism of continental drift and intraplate tectonics. It was found that a global rhythm of continental drift exists, which causes the phases of epeirogeny by regular deformation of lithospheric structures. This approach was made possible by the development of a new method of comparing and analysing paleomagnetic and tectonic data.

A new map projection provided for the first time the order necessary to analyze on a global scale the relations between the direction of drift and all essential geological and geophysical data. This led to the identification of drift fields as the largest lithospheric structural units. Their geometry controls a narrowing lithospheric flow and thus the direction of plate movements. By redistributing upper mantle isotherms, the drift fields simultaneously control the course of asthenospheric counterflows, whose internal flow patterns can trigger asthenospheric upwellings and epeirogenic uplifts.

Thus, besides providing a synthesis of horizontal- and vertical-tectonic hypotheses, the discovery of drift tectonic rules offers a promising framework for the understanding of the Proterozoic tectonomagmatic cycles.