Yellowstone plume drives drainage reorganization in the early Miocene
Journal
Science Advances
Journal Volume
11
Journal Issue
47
ISSN
2375-2548
Date Issued
2025-11-21
Author(s)
Abstract
The rise of the Yellowstone plume coincided with a shift from orogenic collapse of the Cordillera to Basin and Range extension in the northern Rocky Mountains, yet its impact on regional uplift, sediment dispersal, and drainage patterns remains largely unexplored. Here, we present rock magnetic analyses from eight Oligo-Miocene sedimentary sections in southwestern Montana. Using two complementary datasets, we identify a sharp increase in magnetic mineral concentration immediately after the early Miocene unconformity [~20 million years ago (Ma)], concurrent with a shift in detrital zircon ages, indicating a major provenance shift. We identify bimodal volcanism of the Columbia River Basalt Group as the dominant Miocene source, requiring that the early Miocene Continental Divide lay ~400 kilometers west of its present position. This reorganization, driven by Yellowstone plume–induced uplift, persisted until at least 10 Ma. Our study provides geologically based, temporal, and spatial constraints on dynamic topography previously only estimated from modeling.
Subjects
Catchments
Drainage
Jurassic
Miocene
Sedimentary rocks
Topography
mineral
zirconium
Basin and range
Drainage patterns
Early Miocene
Northern Rocky Mountains
Orogenic collapse
Range extensions
Reorganisation
Sediment dispersal
Yellowstone plume
article
basalt
Colombia
Middle Miocene
Montana
plume
river
rock
Rocky Mountains
sediment
topography
Zircon
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Type
journal article