Taconic orogeny Taconic orogeny The Taconic orogeny was a mountain building period that ended 440 million years ago and affected most of modern-day New England. A great mountain chain formed from eastern Canada down through what is now the Piedmont of the East coast of the United States. As the mountain chain eroded in the Silurian and Devonian periods, sediments from the mountain chain spread throughout the present-day Appalachians and midcontinental North America. Beginning in Cambrian time, about 550 million years ago, the Iapetus Ocean began to close. The weight of accumulating sediments, in addition to compressional forces in the crust, forced
Andean orogeny and then to the opening of the Drake Passage 45 million years ago. The separation from Antarctica changed the tectonics of the Fuegian Andes into a transpressive regime with transform faults. About 15 million years ago in the Miocene the Chile Ridge begun to subduct beneath the southern tip of Patagonia (55° S). The point of subduction, the triple junction has gradually moved to the north and lies at present at 47° S. The subduction of the ridge has created a northward moving "window" or gap in the asthenosphere beneath South America. Andean orogeny The Andean orogeny () is an