Advancements in U-Pb dating of deep crustal structures and magmatic/meteoritic events in relation to biotic evolution in earth history

对在形成、再加热或韧性流动事件期间结晶的矿物“锆石”的微量（微克）的精确铀铅分析提供了造山期间地壳演化的详细情况。当巨大的大陆板块碰撞时，这会产生过度增厚的地壳岩石堆，使得逆冲断层的下部从下面被加热并软化，并进一步向内陆滑动。这一定发生在落基山脉下，因为这厚厚的沉积物，曾经在海底，现在坐落在一个古老的大陆之上。为了了解在地球表面以下10 - 20公里处我们看不见的界面沿着发生的过程，我们必须找到一个非常古老的山根，那里的山脉已经被侵蚀移走了。格伦维尔省，沿着乔治亚湾，安大略省，是这样一个根。在这里，研究岩石记录的地质学家观察到了古老的、寒冷的固体下层板块和柔软的、热的上层岩石，这些岩石在10亿多年前的一次大板块碰撞中移动到了上层。简而言之，我们发现了将落基山脉置于其位置的过程的本质。

Precise uranium-lead analyses of minute (microgram) quantities of the mineral 'zircon' that crystallize during formation, reheating, or ductile flow events provide detailed scenarios of the evolution of the Earth's crust during periods of mountain building. When enormous continental plates collide, this produces over-thickened stacks of crustal rocks such that the lower part of the thrust stack is heated from below and softened and slides further inland. This must have happened under the Rocky Mountains as this thick pile of sedimentary material, once at the ocean bottom, now sits above an older continent. To understand processes that took place along the interface, 10 - 20 km below the Earth's surface where we cannot see, we must find a very old mountain root where the mountains have since been removed by erosion. The Grenville Province, well exposed along Georgian Bay, Ontario, is such a root. Here, geologists who study the rock record observe both the old, cold solid lower plate and the soft, hot overlying rocks that moved overtop during a great plate collision more than a billion years ago. In short, we discover the nature of the processes that put the Rockies in their place.