Talk:Carolina terrane

United States: South Carolina Low‑importance

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Some clarification needed

Hopefully there is a geological expert who can clarify these matters. Correct me if i am wrong.

This article is terribly brief. i am also a little confused as i had thought from reading the literature that Carolina is a exotic terrane once a part of Gondwana and which perhaps was associated with Avolonia, apparently consisting of a lithospheric age rocks of 700 million years, however intruded by later age rocks and affected by later metamorphism. There was probably an original phase of island arc activity when the continental block was first formed 700 my ago from oceanic crust, and then a second phase much later 400-300 million years ago as a new subduction front formed near it as it moved northward away from gondwana, and apparently was added to north america around 350 million years ago (Acadian orogeny?), and thus earlier than the exotic suwannee block was added during Alleghenian?. Im guessing carolina may be bounded by taconic crustal blocks gto the north (a native NA block of an age of 400 my) or NA native grenville block (1 by), and to the south by exotic gondwana suwanee block crust (which seem to be 1.4 by crust).

Also, when speaking of terranes, are we speaking of a complete crustal block or just a specific formation, there is a difference. There are vertical surface to mantle borders between different crustal blocks, Carolina is a surface to mantle crustal block that makes up a region of north america, basically a piece of crust that got added to the edge of north america and was originally added to gondwana before rifting off gondwana. Continents are made of units of crust that formed as a result of an initial island arc process and were added onto the continent. in some cases rocks of one crustal block may be thrust over another creating an overlap for some distance.

It would be awesome to have a crustal block map of north america featuring different crustal blocks and their ages. such as the taconic, carolina, grenville and so on.

Millueradfa (talk) 16:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]