Endogenous Continental Regimes. General Features and Geosynclinal Regimes

Abstract

A survey of the main patterns of development of the continents indicates that the endogenous processes on them (tectonic, magmatic, and metamorphic) are combined in certain patterns, and that the intensification or weakening of these various processes, as a rule, runs parallel, which demonstrates an inner unity of the processes and warrants our saying that certain endogenous regimes operate in the Earth’s crust. Each regime has a definite form, scale, and sequence of tectonic movements and magmatic and metamorphic processes, and operates in some one area during a period of geological time.