Book excerpt: Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 154. The Rocky Mountains provide a key region for understanding the evolution of the western North American continent and processes that shape continents in general. As a result, the region has prompted intense and pioneering geologic investigations for over a century, offering scientists an exceptionally rich field laboratory in which to gather data and to make and test interpretations. The Continental Dynamics of the Rocky Mountain (CD-ROM) experiment (1995-2004), from which this book derives, follows in this tradition, motivated by three leading questions: how are continents initially formed and stabilized; how do old lithospheric structures and boundaries influence younger tectonic events; and how did processes related to the plate boundary affect the evolution of the Cenozoic Rocky Mountains? To successfully answer such questions requires integrated studies focused from the surface, through the crust, into the mantle, and with a four-dimensional approach that also encompasses the time dimension.