They are hopeful they can pinpoint the date of the land bridge's opening and possibly when tectonic forces or falling sea levels closed it up again.
32.
Upward motion of the forearc is related to buoyancy forces and the downward motion is associated with the tectonic forcing which causes the oceanic lithosphere to descend.
33.
The Rocky Mountains began a new and continuing phase of crustal stress 5 to 10 million years ago as tectonic forces began to pull the region apart.
34.
They are of geological interest as they occur in a relatively stable region of the Earth's crust, one with diminished tectonic forces and consequently fewer hydrothermal vents.
35.
Wrenched by the same tectonic forces that formed the San Andreas Fault, the 800-mile-long Baja Peninsula has been peeling inexorably away from mainland Mexico for 15 million years.
36.
Over eons, tectonic forces laterally compressed southern regions of this sedimentary basement, thrusting the seafloor upward along contorted faults and displacing the sea northward to its present shoreline.
37.
For the first time, geologists will be able to consider the interplay of uplift and other tectonic forces and the eroding effects of climate on a mountain range.
38.
Later on, the opening of the straits and the massive salt water inflow isolated the animal populations, which diversified in the new Mediterranean islands created by tectonic forces.
39.
The batholith the combined mass of subsurface plutons became exposed as tectonic forces initiated the formation of the Basin and Range geologic province, including the Sierra Nevada.
40.
This basin formed in response to the large scale plate tectonic forces that ripped apart the super-continent Pangea and also led to sea-floor spreading in the North Atlantic Ocean.
