U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY THE NORTH AMERICAN CORDILLERA A color shaded-relief map in oblique Mercator projection about the Pacific- North America pole of rotation, scale circa 1:5,000,000 digital cartography by Ralph A. Haugerud email: rhaugerud@usgs.gov Open-file Report 98-140 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DISCLAIMER: This report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with U.S. Geological Survey editorial standards. Use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The availability of digital topography for North America, coupled with digital cartographic tools, makes possible a rich reincarnation of a map published by Morgan (1968) and Atwater (1970): the North American Cordillera, depicted in an oblique Mercator projection about the Euler pole that describes recent motion between the Pacific and North American plates. The map is 30" wide by x 54" high and depicts western North America from southern Mexico to Point Barrow. Scale of the map is about 1:5,000,000 at the center, though scale varies three-fold from left to right edges of the map. The map is distributed as namc.rtl.Z a Unix-compressed plotfile for an HP-650C, HP-750C, HP-755C, or other large- format plotter that can interpret the RTL subset of the HP-GL2 graphics language. Also available, for those who may wish to make a plot file in a different graphics language, are namc.gra.Z compressed version of ARC-INFO graphic meta-file namc.ps.Z Encapsulated Postscript version of map, compressed and namc2500.ps.Z Postscript version of map, for HP2500CP plotter, compressed The Postscript file, when uncompressed, is so large that many users may find it essentially unplottable. Hewlett-Packard brand paper may be necessary for best color rendition. OBTAINING THE DIGITAL DATA The plotfiles can be obtained in any of three ways: 1. Sending a tape with request A compressed plot file (any or all of the three available formats) can be obtained by sending a tape with request and return address to: North American Cordillera Shaded Relief Map c/o Database Coordinator U.S. Geological Survey 345 Middlefield Road, M/S 975 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Remeber to specify which format you would like. The compressed file will be returned on the tape. The acceptable tape types are: 2.3 or 5.0 GB, 8mm Exabyte tape. 2. Anonymous ftp over the Internet To obtain the tar file by anonymous ftp do the following: cd local_directory go to a directory to receive the tar file ftp wrgis.wr.usgs.gov make ftp connection with the USGS computer WRGIS Name: anonymous use 'anonymous' as your user name Password: your email address use your email address as a password cd pub/geologic go down to the pub/geologic directory cd west_region/of98-140 go down to the open file directory type binary change transfer type to binary get copy the compressed tar file across Internet to the receiving directory quit close the ftp connection 3. From the Western Region Geologic Information Web Page. To obtain the tar file via the World Wide Web: The U.S. Geological Survey now supports a set of graphical pages on the World Wide Web. Digital geologic publications (including this one) can be accessed via these pages. The web page for digital geologic publications from the Western Region (including this one) is 'http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov'. Once at the main page, click on 'Geologic Map Databases' under the heading 'Data Online'; next click on 'Western Region.' Scroll down to get to the listing for this database. Set your web browser to save to a local disk and click on the link for the desired file to download the compressed tar file that contains the North American Cordillera shaded relief map. EXTRACTING THE PLOTFILE If you obtained the database package on tape: put the tape in your tape drive cd local_directory -go to a directory to receive the tar file tar xvf /dev/rmt/n -/dev/rmt/n is the tape device with n an integer, this puts the tar file in local_directory uncompress .Z -makes an uncompressed file If you obtained the database package by anonymous ftp or from the web page: uncompress .Z -makes an uncompressed file REFERENCES CITED Atwater, T., 1970, Implications of plate tectonics for the Cenozoic tectonic evolution of western North America: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 81, p. 3513-3536. Morgan, W.J., 1968, Rises, trenches, great faults, and crustal blocks: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 73, p. 1959-1982.