Sonoma orogeny Sonoma orogeny The Sonoma orogeny was a period of mountain building in western North America. The exact age and structure of the Sonoma orogeny is controversial. The orogeny is generally thought to have occurred during the Permian / Triassic transition, around 250 million years ago, following the Late Devonian Antler orogeny. The Sonoma orogeny was one of a sequence of accretionary events along the Cordilleran margin, possibly caused by the closure of the basin between the island arc of Sonomia and the North American continent. Evidence of this event has been reported throughout western North America, but most distinctly in
Antler orogeny due to sea-level rise in the Cambrian rather than displacement from an ocean basin. The sedimentary effects of the Antler orogeny are well known and well described in many published reports, but the exact nature of that event and the driving force remain unsettled. Among the unanswered questions are these: what aspect of plate tectonics was involved; what effect did the Alamo impact event have; why did marine basins appear in the area of general uplift; why did the western facies assemblage, and not the eastern assemblage, include bedded chert, basaltic bodies, barite deposits, and sulfide deposits. Antler orogeny The