North America Nearly Split in Half; The Midcontinent Rift

North America once nearly split in 2, with a 2,200 mile long series of rifts stretching from Oklahoma to Ontario all the way to Alabama. While this rift failed, it allowed for lake Superior to form, and also left behind numerous incredibly valuable ore deposits, especially elemental copper. Today's video will discuss this geologic province as it formed 1.1 billion years ago.

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Sources/Citations:
[1] U.S. Geological Survey
[2] Woodruff, L.G., Schulz, K.J., Dicken, C.L., and Nicholson, S.W., 2020, Mineral resource database for deposits related to the Mesoproterozoic Midcontinent Rift System, United States and Canada: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2020–1069, 20 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20201069
[3] Stein, Carol & Kley, Jonas & Stein, Seth & Hindle, David & Keller, Randy. (2015). North America's Midcontinent Rift: When rift met LIP. Geosphere. 11. GES01183.1. 10.1130/GES01183.1.
[4] Stein, Seth & Stein, Carol & Kley, Jonas & Keller, Randy & Merino, Miguel & Wolin, Emily & Wiens, Douglas & Wysession, Michael & Al-Equabi, Ghassan & Shen, Weisen & Frederiksen, Andrew & Darbyshire, F.A & Jurdy, Donna & Waite, Gregory & Rose, William I & Vye, Erika & Rooney, Tyrone & Moucha, Robert & Brown, Eric. (2016). New Insights into North America's Midcontinent Rift. Eos. 97. 10.1029/2016EO056659.
[5] Bodden, Thomas & Bornhorst, Theodore & Bégué, Florence & Deering, Chad. (2022). Sources of Hydrothermal Fluids Inferred from Oxygen and Carbon Isotope Composition of Calcite, Keweenaw Peninsula Native Copper District, Michigan, USA. Minerals. 12. 474. 10.3390/min12040474. CC BY 4.0.
[6] Prasanna Mahesh Gunawardana, Robert Moucha, Tyrone O. Rooney, Seth Stein, Carol A. Stein; North America's Midcontinent Rift magma volume: A coincidental rendezvous of a plume with a rift. Geology 2022; 50 (10): 1125–1129. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/G49913.1

0:00 Midcontinent Rift
1:33 Flood Basalts
3:13 End of Rifting
3:35 Copper Deposition

Видео North America Nearly Split in Half; The Midcontinent Rift канала GeologyHub