Abstract

The Greater Ancestral Rocky Mountains (GARM) comprise a series of uplifted mountains blocks and adjacent sedimentary basins.  Greatest uplift and subsidence took place during the Pennsylvanian and Early Permian – by Middle Permian, uplift and basin subsidence had ceased.  Studies of both the tectonics and structure of the mountains and the sedimentology and stratigraphy of the basins has amassed voluminous data but there is still not consensus regarding the tectonic cause of the orogen.  Early debate over source of voluminous Pennsylvanian-Permian eolian sandstone and fine-grained redbeds, sourced locally from Precambrian-cored uplifts or more distal sources, has been resolved by numerous detrital zircon (DZ) studies of these sedimentary rocks. Ages of DZ grains show Paleozoic (330-470 Ma),  Neoproterozoic (550-900 Ma), Grenville (1000-1300 Ma), Paleoproterozoic (1400-1800 Ma) and Earliest Proterozoic and Archean (> 2000 Ma) sources.  Only 1400-1800 Ma grains are abundant in Precambrian cores of GARM uplifts.  Detailed scrutiny of remaining grains suggests Canadian Shield, Appalachian Grenville basement, and Appalachian-Ouachita accreted terranes as the most likely sources.  Comparing the DZ ages in GARM basin sedimentary and sedimentary rocks in the Ouachita orogen with Upper Mississippian to Lower Permian sedimentary rocks of the Appalachian Basin, the Black Warrior Basin, and Midcontinent regions yield sediment dispersal patterns and likely fluvial and eolian transportation routes into GARM basins.  These additional routing patterns generate detailed and accurate Paleogeographic maps and contribute to our understanding of the geologic history of Southwest Pangea.

Personal Data

• Born in 1945, Berwyn, Illinois
• married, two sons
• U.S. citizen
• currently lives in Scottsdale AZ

Professional history

• President, Colorado Plateau Geosystems – Deep Time Maps, 2009-present
• Professor of Geology, Northern Arizona University, 1988-2009                   
• Chair, Department of Geology, Northern Arizona University, 1990-1994
• Associate Professor of Geology, Northern Arizona University, 1981‑1988
• Assistant Professor of Geology, Northern Arizona University, 1975‑1981
• Utah Geological and Mineral Survey (part time), 1972, 73, 78
• Assistant Professor of Geology, Fort Hays, Kansas State University, 1973‑1975
• Teaching Assistant, University of Iowa, 1970‑1973
• Teaching Assistant, University of Utah, 1968‑1970
• Field Assistant, Gulf Oil, Mineral Division; Uranium exploration, 1968

Short-course presentations

• RMAG, Denver, Paleogeographic Maps, 2010
• SWAAPG, Abilene, Ft. Worth, Paleogeographic Maps, 2011

Recognition

• 2011 – AAPG Geoscience in the media award for web sites
• 2013 – Arizona Library Award for Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau (Blakey/Ranney)
• 2013-2014 – AAPG Distinguished Lecturer – presentations given on “Paleogeography and Geologic History of Western North America” to Universities and Geological Societies across the country
• 2016 – John W. Shelton Search and Discovery Award for article Paleogeography and Paleotectonics of the Western Interior Seaway:Jurassic-Cretaceous of North America from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
• 2017 – Outstanding Alumni Award, University of Wisconsin
• 2021 – John D. Haun Landmark Publication Award (in recognition for Ancient Landscapes of Western North America)
• 2021 – Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Iowa 

Membership in scientific societies

• Society for Sedimentary Geology [SEPM]
• International Association of Sedimentologists
• Geological Society of America
• Sigma Xi

Books

• Blakey, R. C., and Ranney, W., 2008, Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau: (Grand Canyon) Grand Canyon Association, 176 p.
• Frisch, Wolfgang, Meschede, Martin, and Blakey, Ronald, 2010, Plate Tectonics (Heidelberg) Springer, 212 p.
• Blakey, R. C., and Ranney, W. D., 2018, Ancient Landscapes of Western North America – A Geologic History with Paleogeographic Maps: Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 228 p.

Publications

60 reviewed scholarly publications (Selected Recent Publications attached), 80 abstracts

Selected recent publications      

• Gehrels, George E. Ron Blakey, Karl E. Karlstrom, J. Michael Timmons, Bill Dickinson, and Mark Pecha, 2011, Detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology of Paleozoic strata in the Grand Canyon, Arizona: Lithosphere,v. 3-3, p. 183-200.
• Nardin, E., Goddéris, Y., Donnadieu, Y., LeHir, G., Blakey, R.C., Pucéat, E., Aretz, M.
, 2011, Modeling the early Paleozoic long-term climatic trend: Bulletin of the Geological Society of America volume 123, issue 5, pp. 1181 – 1192.
• Blakey, R. C., and Middleton, L. T., 2012, Geologic History and Paleogeography of Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic Sedimentary Rocks, Eastern Grand Canyon, Arizona, in, Timmons, J. M., and Karlstrom, K., (eds.) Advances in Understanding the Geology of Eastern Grand Canyon: Geological Society of America Special Paper 489.
• Howell, Evan R., and Ronald C. Blakey, 2013, Sedimentological constraints on the evolution of the Cordilleran arc: New insights from the Sonsela Member, Upper Triassic Chinle Formation, Petrified Forest National Park (Arizona, USA): Geological Society of America Bulletin 125, no. 7-8;1349-1368.
• Blakey, R. C., 2014, Paleogeography and paleotectonics of the Western Interior Seaway, Jurassic-Cretaceous of North America: AAPG Search and Discovery Article #30392, 72 p.
• Blakey, R. C., and Ranney, W. D., 2018, Ancient Landscapes of Western North America – A Geologic History with Paleogeographic Maps: Cham, Switzerland, 228 p.
• Blakey, R. C., 2019, Pennsylvanian-Jurassic sedimentary basins of the Colorado Plateau and Southern Rocky Mountains, in Miall, A. D., ed, The sedimentary basins of the United States and Canada, p. 315-367, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
• Miall, A. D., and Blakey, R. C.,2019, The Phanerozoic tectonic and sedimentary evolution of North America, in Miall, A. D., ed, The sedimentary basins of the United States and Canada, p. 2-38, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
• Karlstrom, K.E., Jacobson, C.E., Sundell, K.E., Eyster, A., Blakey, R., Ingersoll, R.V., Mulder, J.A., Young, R.A., Beard, L.S., Holland, M.E., Shuster, D.L., Winn, C., and Crossey, L., 2020, Evaluating the Shinumo- Sespe drainage connection: Arguments against the “old” (70–17 Ma) Grand Canyon models for Colorado Plateau drainage evolution: Geosphere, v. 16, no. 6, p. 1425– 1456, https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02265.1.
• Karlstrom, K.E., et al., (R. Blakey 6th co-author), 2020, Redefining the Tonto Group of Grand Canyon and recalibrating the Cambrian time scale: Geology, v. 48, p. 425–430, https://doi.org/10.1130/G46755.1.
• Blakey, R., 2021, Paleotectonic and paleogeographic history of the Arctic region: Atlantic Geology, v. 57, p. 7-39.
• Lawton T. F., Blakey, R. C., Stockli, D. F., and Liu, L, 2021, Late Paleozoic (Late Mississippian-Middle Permian) sediment provenance and dispersal in western equatorial Pangea: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 572, p. 1-36.