A transect through the accreted terranes of the nothern Canadian Cordillera: from Cassiar, British Columbia to Kluane Lake, Yukon.
Description
This five-day geological excursion across the northern Canadian Cordillera of southern Yukon and northern B.C. will lead the participants from the parautochtonous edge of ancestral North America (Laurentia), near Cassiar, BC, through the Intermontane (peri-Laurentian) terranes and the oceanic Cache Creek Terrane (of Tethyan affinity), and end in the exotic Insular terranes (of Arctic affinity) by Kluane Lake, in southwestern Yukon. The trip will examine the internal and external relationships of terranes that were accreted to ancestral North America in Mesozoic time and discuss models of Cordilleran evolution. Although the field trip route offers limited opportunity to examine the mineral wealth of these terranes, metallogenetic highlights will be presented within their regional tectonic context along the way.