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The Sierra Nevada Batholith is a large batholith that is approximately 400 miles long and 60-80 miles wide which forms the core of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, exposed at the surface as granite.
In early Triassic time, an extensive volcanic arc system called the Sierran Arc began to develop along the western margin of the North American continent. In Southern California, this volcanic arc would develop throughout the Mesozoic Era to become the geologic regions known as the Sierra Nevada Batholith, the Peninsular Ranges Batholith, (in the Peninsular Ranges), and other plutonic and ...
The granodiorite forms part of the Tuolumne Intrusive Suite (Tuolumne Batholith), one of the four major intrusive suites within the Sierra Nevada. It has been assigned radiometric ages between 88 and 87 million years and therefore reached its cooling stage in the Coniacian (Upper Cretaceous).
Half Dome, a quartz monzonite monolith in Yosemite National Park and part of the Sierra Nevada Batholith. A batholith (from Ancient Greek bathos 'depth' and lithos 'rock') is a large mass of intrusive igneous rock (also called plutonic rock), larger than 100 km 2 (40 sq mi) in area, [1] that forms from cooled magma deep in the Earth's crust.
The Sierra Nevada lies primarily in Central and Eastern California, with the Carson Range, a small but historically important spur, extending into Nevada. West-to-east, the Sierra Nevada's elevation increases gradually from 500 feet (150 m) in the Central Valley [ 18 ] to more than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) atop the highest peaks of its crest 50 to ...
The deepest well only goes to 3,759 feet (1,146 m), reaching the Freeman Formation, of Eocene age. Underneath the oil-bearing sedimentary formations, the basement granitic complex is of Jurassic age. It rises towards the east, part of the enormous Sierra Nevada Batholith.
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Rocks in the ranges are dominated by Mesozoic granitic rocks, derived from the same massive batholith which forms the core of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. They are part of a geologic province known as the Salinian Block which broke off the North American Plate as the San Andreas Fault and Gulf of California came into being.