Deformation between the highly oblique Yakutat–North American plate boundary and the Eastern Denali fault

A new study reveals that rock exhumation extends significantly farther inland—over 100 km—of the Fairweather fault compared to less than 30 km in the St. Elias syntaxial region, indicating widespread mid-Miocene to present-day deformation between the Fairweather and Eastern Denali faults. The research integrates detrital apatite and zircon fission track data from 27 modern drainages with existing geochronology, showing that the Eastern Denali fault acts as a backstop limiting late Cenozoic exhumation northeast of it. This challenges prior assumptions about deformation patterns in this region.

Enkelmann, E., & Falkowski, S. (2021). Deformation between the highly oblique Yakutat–North American plate boundary and the Eastern Denali fault. Geosphere, 17(6), 2123–2143. https://doi.org/10.1130/ges02410.1