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
Nevadan orogeny deformation from the Nevadan Orogeny in the Eastern Belt is somewhat limited. It was determined that the deformation was minimal in the Eastern Belt by looking at dikes that had intruded the rocks which appeared to be mostly undeformed. These mostly undeformed dikes were dated using the K-Ar method and were determined to be between 169 and 209 Ma in age, which implies they were placed well before any deformation related to the Nevadan Orogeny would have occurred. As the age of these dikes are older than the deformation of the Nevadan Orogeny, it is evident that most of the