Do you have any idea how hard it is to condense 1.75 billion years of history into a single blog post? Not to mention, I made myself thoroughly homesick in the process. Don’t get me wrong: I adore the Pacific Northwest, and it’s got some of the most fabulous geology in the world, but I grew up in Arizona, and it has got some utterly fabulous geology of its own. One of the best places to see it is in the old mining town of Jerome, Arizona. So come explore it with me in Oceans of Ore: How an Undersea Caldera Eruption Created Jerome, Arizona. It’s the first time Rosetta Stones will be joining the Accretionary Wedge, too, so if you’ve got champagne, break it out!
I’m going to go drown my sorrows in that 800+ page paper on Mount St. Helens now.
A big pat on the back for the article Dana!
More science here you describe an analog to Cyprus (which of course means copper) whose copper came from along a subduction zone. Here is a link to a web site describing the geology of Cyprus. Since this is a much newer event than Jerome it provides some vision of how things might have looked about the time the Yavapai event happened or possibly the Mazatzal. Sine we are talking about 1650 my or more younger rocks more is preserved.
That was awesome.
Man, been visiting that town for years, but never had the geology of the region spelled out so clearly.
Also, this fills me with the urge to go treasure hunting for some reason.