Terrane

A terrane in geology is a shorthand term for a "tectonostratigraphic terrane", which is a fragment of crustal material formed on, or broken off from, one tectonic plate and accreted or "sutured" to crust lying on another plate. The crustal block or fragment preserves its own distinctive geologic history, which is different from that of the surrounding areas – hence the term "exotic" terrane. The suture zone between a terrane and the crust it attaches to is usually identifiable as a fault.

Older usage of terrane simply described a series of related rock formations or an area having a preponderance of a particular rock or rock groups.

Overview

A tectonostratigraphic terrane is not necessarily an independent microplate in origin, since it may not contain the full thickness of the lithosphere. It is a piece of crust which has been transported laterally, usually as part of a larger plate, and is relatively buoyant due to thickness or low density. When the plate of which it was a part subducted under another plate, the terrane failed to subduct, detached from its transporting plate, and accreted onto the overriding plate. Therefore, the terrane transferred from one plate to the other. Typically, accreting terranes are portions of continental crust which have rifted off another continental mass and been transported surrounded by oceanic crust, or old island arcs formed at some distant subduction zone.

A tectonostratigraphic terrane is a fault-bounded package of rocks of at least regional extent characterized by a geologic history which differs from that of neighboring terranes. The basic characteristics of these terranes is that the present spatial relations are not compatible with the inferred geologic histories. Where juxtaposed terranes processes coeval strata, it must be demonstrable that the geologic evolutions are different and incompatible, and there must be an absence of intermediate lithofacies which could link the strata

The concept of tectonostratigraphic terrane developed from studies in the 1970s of the complicated Pacific Cordilleran ("backbone") orogenic margin of North America, a complex and diverse geological potpourri that was difficult to explain until the new science of plate tectonics illuminated the ability of crustal fragments to "drift" thousands of miles from their origin and fetch up, crumpled, against an exotic shore. Such terranes were dubbed "accreted terranes" by geologists.

It was soon determined that these exotic crustal slices had in fact originated as "suspect terranes" in regions at some considerable remove, frequently thousands of kilometers, from the orogenic belt where they had eventually ended up. It followed that the present orogenic belt was itself an accretionary collage, composed of numerous terranes derived from around the circum-Pacific region and now sutured together along major faults. These concepts were soon applied to other, older orogenic belts, e.g. the Appalachian belt of North America.... Support for the new hypothesis came not only from structural and lithological studies, but also from studies of faunal biodiversity and palaeomagnetism.

— ^[1]

When terranes are composed of repeated accretionary events, and hence are composed of subunits with distinct history and structure, they may be called superterranes.^[2]

Tectonostratigraphic terranes

Africa Birminian Terrane Kahiltna Terrane Likasi Terrane Mozambique Belt Asia Shan–Thai Terrane Tibet Lhasa Terrane[3] Qiangtang Terrane [3]           Xigaze Terrane[3] Bainang Terrane[3] Zedong Terrane[3] Dazhuqu Terrane[3] Australasia Brook Street Terrane Buller Terrane Caples Terrane East Tasmanian Terrane Glenburgh Terrane Dun Mountain Maitai Terrane Molong-Monaro Terrane Murihiku Terrane Narryer Gneiss Terrane Takaka Terrane Torlesse Composite Terrane           Waipapa Composite Terrane West Tasmanian Terrane

Europe Armorican terrane Avalonia Avalon Composite Terrane Balearic Terrane Briançonnais Terrane Central Highlands Terrane Central Southern Uplands Terrane Charnwood Terrane Hebridean Terrane Leinster-Lakesman Terrane Midland Valley Terrane North Armorican Composite Terrane            Northern Highlands Terrane Rosslare-Monian Terranes Southern North Sea Terrane Tregor-La Hague Terrane Wrekin Terrane[4] Fennoscandia Bamble Terrane[5] Idefjorden Terrane[5] Kongsberg Terrane[5] Telemarkia Terrane[5]

North America Buffalo Head Terrane Cache Creek Terrane Carolina Terrane Cassiar Terrane Hottah Terrane Occidentalia Terrane Pearya Terrane Salinian Block Slide Mountain Terrane Smartville Block Sonomia Terrane Stikinia Wrangellia Terrane Yakutat Block Yukon-Tanana Terrane South America Arequipa-Antofalla Chilenia Chiloé Block Cuyania Pampia

References

Footnotes

1. Carney et al.
2. University of British Columbia website: Terranes
3. Aitchison, J.C., Ali, J.R., and Davis, A.M., 2007, When and where did India and Asia collide?: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 112, p. 1-19.:
4. British Geological Survey 1996: Tectonic map of Britain, Ireland & adjacent areas, Pharaoh et al, 1:1,500,000
5. Viola, G.; Henderson, I.H.C.; Bingen, B.; Hendriks, B.W.H. (2011). "The Grenvillian–Sveconorwegian orogeny in Fennoscandia: Back-thrusting and extensional shearing along the "Mylonite Zone"". Precambrian Research 189 (3-4): 368–388. doi:10.1016/j.precamres.2011.06.005. Retrieved 22 August 2015.

Bibliography

• J.N. Carney et al., Precambrian Rocks of England and Wales, GCReg. volume 20 (ISBN 978-1861074874)
• John McPhee, Basin and Range, 1981 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York).
• John McPhee, In Suspect Terrain, 1983 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York).
• John McPhee, Assembling California, 1993 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York).

External links

• West Antarctica terrane analysis
• Examples of accreted terrane in Idaho
• Alaskan Terranes