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
Petermann Orogeny a set of vertically arcuate thrust faults which dip toward each other and accommodate vertical movement by essentially "squeezing" the central block up and out. Several northeast trending discontinuities including the Mundrabilla lineament divide the Petermann orogeny, with extensive vertical offsets across them, usually west-side-up, though the timing of this event is unknown. Six deformations are known (to be completed) Foliations associated with the Petermann Orogeny are typically steeply to gently south-dipping and subparallel to the thrust faults upon which they were developed. S regionally pervasive stretching lineation is potentially associated with some of these faults, especially in the deeper