Geological setting and tectonic history of Mesoamerica

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Abstract
The goal of the geologist is primarily geological history, that is, the elucidation of the sequence of events as a result of which the non-biological world as we know it came to be. This goal requires particular attention to the physical processes acting on the earth at present (‘the present is the key to the past’). The processes we can observe are mainly those acting on the surface of the earth; thus, it is not surprising that the history of surficial processes was elucidated first. Interior processes were and remain for the most part mysterious, and only recently has there been a firm and defensible basis for believing that the interior of the earth is not static but in vigorous motion, that the surface of the earth responds strongly to these interior processes, and that we can chart the changes of the surface of the earth back in time with some accuracy and so learn not only of the earth’s total history but of the forces that formed it.

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