Apatite fission track ages and confined-length distributions were collected from 38 basement outcrop and 5 basement drillcore samples in order to reconstruct the Phanerozoic thermal history of the Michigan Basin and southern Canadian Shield. The apatite data indicate two periods of thermal activity in the region. Triassic heating/cooling that affected the basin and adjacent shield and Cretaceous or post-Cretaceous heating/cooling that primarily affected the basin. The magnitude, timing, and cause of Cretaceous thermal activity cannot be identified with the present data. Model calculations suggest that some of the shield samples and probably all of the basin samples were heated to temperatures of at least 90 ¿C just prior to relatively rapid cooling in the Triassic. Available stratigraphic and geochemical constraints suggest that these elevated temperature were the result of burial by an additional 2--5 km of late Paleozoic (probably Pennsylvanian and Permian) sediments. It is likely that the basin was buried during the Alleghenian Orogeny as observed for the adjacent Appalachian Basin. ¿1991 American Geophysical Union