LATE CENOZOIC UPLIFT OF DENALI AND ITS RELATION TO RELATIVE PLATE MOTION AND FAULT MORPHOLOGY

Apatite fission-track analysis of samples that cover a 4-kilometer vertical section from the western flank of Denali (Mount McKinley), North America's highest mountain, suggests that the mountain massif was formed by rapid uplift (>1 kilometer per million years) beginning approximately 6 million years ago (Ma). Uplift was a result of the morphology of the Denali fault and a change in motion of the Pacific plate with respect to North America at approximately 5 Ma, which created opposing tangential vectors of relative movement along the fault and forced the intervening crustal blocks upward.