Farallon Plate, San Andreas Fault & California’s Oldest Rocks | Out in the Field with Jeremy Patrich

Join me on an adventure, ‘Out in the Field’ just outside of Mecca California, where we can see not only the San Andreas Fault but observe remnants of the ancient Farallon Plate that used to be between the North American and Pacific Plate! Did I mention we found some of California’s oldest rocks?

Geographic Features Observed: Uplift, Stratigraphy, Plate Tectonics, Subduction, Schist, Gneiss

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#Geography, #Geology, #SanAndreasFault

A tectonic plate that disappeared under North America millions of years ago still peeks out in central California and Mexico, new research finds.

The Farallon oceanic plate was once nestled between the Pacific and North American plates, which were converging around 200 million years ago at what would become the San Andreas Fault along the Pacific coast. This slow geological movement forced the Farallon plate under North America, a process called subduction.

Much of the Farallon plate got pushed down into the mantle, the flowing layer below the Earth’s crust. Off the coast, parts of the plate fragmented, leaving some remnants at the surface, stuck to the Pacific plate.