The Tectonic Setting and Origin of Cretaceous Batholiths within the North American Cordillera

The Tectonic Setting and Origin of Cretaceous Batholiths within the North American Cordillera
Author: Robert S. Hildebrand
Publisher: Geological Society of America
Total Pages: 123
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0813725321

In this Special Paper, Hildebrand and Whalen present a big-picture, paradigm-busting synthesis that examines the tectonic setting, temporal relations, and geochemistry of many plutons within Cretaceous batholithic terranes of the North American Cordillera. In addition to their compelling tectonic synthesis, they argue that most of the batholiths are not products of arc magmatism as commonly believed, but instead were formed by slab failure during and after collision. They show that slab window and Precambrian TTG suites share many geochemical similarities with Cretaceous slab failure rocks. Geochemical and isotopic data indicate that the slab failure magmas were derived dominantly from the mantle and thus have been one of the largest contributors to growth of continental crust. The authors also note that slab failure plutons emplaced into the epizone are commonly associated with Cu-Au porphyries, as well as Li-Cs-Ta pegmatites.

Physical Geology

Physical Geology
Author: Steven Earle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 628
Release: 2016-08-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9781537068824

This is a discount Black and white version. Some images may be unclear, please see BCCampus website for the digital version.This book was born out of a 2014 meeting of earth science educators representing most of the universities and colleges in British Columbia, and nurtured by a widely shared frustration that many students are not thriving in courses because textbooks have become too expensive for them to buy. But the real inspiration comes from a fascination for the spectacular geology of western Canada and the many decades that the author spent exploring this region along with colleagues, students, family, and friends. My goal has been to provide an accessible and comprehensive guide to the important topics of geology, richly illustrated with examples from western Canada. Although this text is intended to complement a typical first-year course in physical geology, its contents could be applied to numerous other related courses.

Under the Batholith

Under the Batholith
Author: Kurt Larson
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 696
Release: 2003-01-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0595267815

Kurt Larson has developed an epic mining exploration novel in the pages of Under the Batholith. The principal character is a young mining engineer called Lars Svensson, down on his luck in Wyoming, having being fired over an office affair with an older woman. A big oil company, desperate for success in its newly acquired mining interests, selects him to represent their interests on a gold exploration site on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. How Lars gets there, who he meets and what he finds is the stuff of great adventure. Kurt Larson's exciting style of writing and eye for detail will keep you turning the pages to find how greed gets the better of people.

Assembling California

Assembling California
Author: John McPhee
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0374706026

At various times in a span of fifteen years, John McPhee made geological field surveys in the company of Eldridge Moores, a tectonicist at the University of California at Davis. The result of these trips is Assembling California, a cross-section in human and geologic time, from Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada through the golden foothills of the Mother Lode and across the Great Central Valley to the wine country of the Coast Ranges, the rock of San Francisco, and the San Andreas family of faults. The two disparate time scales occasionally intersect—in the gold disruptions of the nineteenth century no less than in the earthquakes of the twentieth—and always with relevance to a newly understood geologic history in which half a dozen large and separate pieces of country are seen to have drifted in from far and near to coalesce as California. McPhee and Moores also journeyed to remote mountains of Arizona and to Cyprus and northern Greece, where rock of the deep-ocean floor has been transported into continental settings, as it has in California. Global in scope and a delight to read, Assembling California is a sweeping narrative of maps in motion, of evolving and dissolving lands.

Batholith and Associated Rocks of Corona, Elsinore, and San Luis Rey Quadrangles, Southern California

Batholith and Associated Rocks of Corona, Elsinore, and San Luis Rey Quadrangles, Southern California
Author: Esper Signius Larsen
Publisher: Geological Society of America
Total Pages: 201
Release: 1948
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0813710294

The batholith of southern and Lower California is exposed continuously from near Riverside, California, southward for a distance of about 350 miles. In central Lower California it is covered in part by younger rocks, but discontinuous bodies extend to the southern end of Lower California. The batholith is probably over 1000 miles long. Its width is about 60 miles. A strip about 70 miles wide across the northern part of the batholith has been studied ; the western half was mapped in detail, and the eastern half was covered in rapid reconnaissance. In the area studied the batholith intrudes Triassic sediments and Jurassic (?) volcanic rocks along its western border, and Paleozoic sediments along its eastern border. Screens and roof pendants are common within the batholith. The Triassic rocks are mildly metamorphosed in the western part of the area but become progressively more coarsely crystalline toward the east. The Palezoic rocks are rather coarsely crystalline. The metamorphism in large part preceded the intrusion of the batholith, and only locally was there appreciable contact metamorphism. The batholith and older rocks are overlain by Upper Cretaceous and younger sediments. Small bodies of andesite and basalt of Quaternary age are present in the area. The batholith was intruded in early Upper Cretaceous time. The batholith in the area studied was emplaced by more than 20 separate injections. Most of the resulting rock types are found in only one or a few small bodies which are confined to a small area. In the area studied in detail (pi. 1) five types are present in many large, widely sepai-ated bodies, making up about 88 percent of the area underlain by the batholith. In the eastern half of the batholith three more widespread types are present. In the western half of the body the rocks range from gabbro to granite, but in the eastern half several tonalites constitute nearly the whole of the mass. The gabbro is composed of many related rocks. Some have hornblende, some pyroxene ; in some the plagioclase is anorthite, in others it is as sodic as andesine-labradorite. Some of the tonalites contain abundant inclusions that have been almost completely reworked by the magma and have been softened and stretched into thin discs. These inclusions are well oriented, and near the contacts with older rocks they parallel the contacts ; elsewhere they strike about N. 30° W. and dip steeply to the east. One tonalite, whose feldspar is andesine, has scattered crystals with cores of bytownite, and has well-crystallized hornblende with cores of pale uralitic hornblende and remnants of augite. Hornblende and biotite are the predominant mafic minerals of the tonalites and granodiorites. The general strike of the structures of the area have been about N. 30° "W. from Paleozoic to the present time. The Paleozoic and Triassic sediments, the orientation of the inclusions and other structures of the batholith, the elongation of the batholith and the mountain ranges, and the strike of the major faults are in about the same direction. In the batholith and the older sediments the dips are steep to the east. The batholith must have been emplaced by stoping and not by forceful injection. The different rocks of the batholith were formed from the intermediate gabbro by crystal differentiation and assimilation in depth. In early Upper Cretaceous time diastrophism folded the older rocks and formed, in depth, a strip of gabbroic magma about 1000 miles long. A small amount of this magma was intruded nearly to the surface. The deep magma differentiated quietly until its upper part attained the composition of a tonalite. Earth movements then occurred at least five times in rapid succession and caused the injection of the different tonalites. Some of these carry abundant inclusions, indicating a widespread shattering of the wall rock shortly before final emplacement. From time to time local movements caused the injections of the different granodiorites. When the deep-seated magma reached the composition of a light-colored granodiorite, widespread diastrophism moved the main granodiorite upward. Further local moremeut caused the emplacement of the many local granodiorites and granites.