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Laramide orogeny
mountain-building episode in Western North America, 80-35 million years ago / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Laramide orogeny was a time of mountain building in western North America. It started in the Upper Cretaceous, 70 to 80 million years ago. It ended 35 to 55 million years ago.
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The Laramide orogeny occurred in a series of pulses, with quiet phases in between. The main feature was a deep-seated orogeny, from Canada to northern Mexico. The easternmost mountain-building is the Black Hills of South Dakota.
When Pangaea broke up, the Americas moved West. The buckling effect of this was the Andes and the Rockies. They over-rode existing continental plates and buckled up to produce the mountain ranges on the west of the Americas.[1]