Alleghanian orogeny the Allegheny and Cumberland Plateau, which in some areas are popularly called mountains, but are actually simply uplifted and eroded plateaus. A portion of the Alleghanian mountain system departed with Africa when Pangaea broke up and the Atlantic Ocean began to form. Today, this forms the Anti-Atlas mountains of Morocco. The Anti-Atlas have been geologically uplifted in relatively recent times, and are today much more rugged than their Alleghanian relatives. Alleghanian orogeny The Alleghanian orogeny or Appalachian orogeny is one of the geological mountain-forming events that formed the Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Mountains. The term and spelling Alleghany orogeny was
Grenville orogeny of Laurentia, and likely collided with a different continent than that involved in the eastern collision. The Zapotecan Orogeny of Mexico is coeval with the later stages of the Grenville orogeny, and they are generally considered to be one and the same. Mesoproterozoic igneous protoliths (metamorphosed to granulite facies during the orogeny) fall into two age groups in Mexico; c. 1235–1115 Ma and c. 1035–1010 Ma. Rocks of the former group bear geochemical signatures implying island arc and back-arc basin provenance. The latter group represents AMCG magmatism. These AMCG rocks are somewhat anomalous throughout the Grenville orogen, there is no