Metchosin Igneous Complex
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Metchosin Igneous Complex
The Metchosin Igneous Complex is an ophiolite sequence in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, located at the southern end of Vancouver Island. It is the northernmost expression of the Siletzia terrane and consists of three rock units, including a basaltic sequence, a sheeted dike (geology), dike complex and gabbro stocks. See also *Volcanism of Western Canada References

Ophiolites Volcanism of British Columbia Southern Vancouver Island {{plate-tectonics-stub ...
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Ophiolite
An ophiolite is a section of Earth's oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle that has been uplifted and exposed, and often emplaced onto continental crustal rocks. The Greek word ὄφις, ''ophis'' (''snake'') is found in the name of ophiolites, because of the superficial texture of some of them. Serpentinite especially evokes a snakeskin. (The suffix ''-lite'' is from the Greek ''lithos'', meaning "stone".) Some ophiolites have a green color. The origin of these rocks, present in many mountainous massifs, remained uncertain until the advent of plate tectonic theory. Their great significance relates to their occurrence within mountain belts such as the Alps and the Himalayas, where they document the existence of former ocean basins that have now been consumed by subduction. This insight was one of the founding pillars of plate tectonics, and ophiolites have always played a central role in plate tectonic theory and the interpretation of ancient mo ...
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British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts and grassy plains. British Columbia borders the province of Alberta to the east; the territories of Yukon and Northwest Territories to the north; the U.S. states of Washington (state), Washington, Idaho and Montana to the south, and Alaska to the northwest. With an estimated population of over 5.7million as of 2025, it is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, British Columbia, Victoria, while the province's largest city is Vancouver. Vancouver and its suburbs together make up List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada, the third-largest metropolit ...
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Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, second-largest country by total area, with the List of countries by length of coastline, world's longest coastline. Its Canada–United States border, border with the United States is the world's longest international land border. The country is characterized by a wide range of both Temperature in Canada, meteorologic and Geography of Canada, geological regions. With Population of Canada, a population of over 41million people, it has widely varying population densities, with the majority residing in List of the largest population centres in Canada, urban areas and large areas of the country being sparsely populated. Canada's capital is Ottawa and List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada, ...
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Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by area and the most populous along the west coasts of the Americas. The southern part of Vancouver Island and some of the nearby Gulf Islands are the only parts of British Columbia or Western Canada to lie south of the 49th parallel. The southeast part of the island has one of the warmest climates in Canada, and since the mid-1990s has been mild enough in a few areas to grow Mediterranean crops such as olives and lemons. The population of Vancouver Island was 864,864 as of 2021. Nearly half of that population (~400,000) live in the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria on the southern tip of the island, which includes Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Other notable cities and towns on Vancouver Island include Nanaimo, Campb ...
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Siletzia
Siletzia is a massive formation of early to middle Eocene epoch marine basalts and interbedded sediments in the forearc of the Cascadia subduction zone, on the west coast of North America. It forms the basement rock under western Oregon and Washington and the southern tip of Vancouver Island. It is now fragmented into the Siletz and Crescent terranes. Siletzia corresponds geographically to the Coast Range Volcanic Province (or Coast Range basalts), but is distinguished from slightly younger basalts that erupted after Siletzia accreted to the continent and differ in chemical composition. The Siletzia basalts are tholeiitic, a characteristic of mantle-derived magma erupted from a spreading ridge between plates of oceanic crust. The younger basalts are alkalic or calc-alkaline, characteristic of magmas derived from a subduction zone. This change of composition reflects a change from marine to continental volcanism that becomes evident around 48 to 42  Ma (millions of y ...
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Basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial planet, rocky planet or natural satellite, moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt. Rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt is chemically equivalent to slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro. The eruption of basalt lava is observed by geologists at about 20 volcanoes per year. Basalt is also an important rock type on other planetary bodies in the Solar System. For example, the bulk of the plains of volcanism on Venus, Venus, which cover ~80% of the surface, are basaltic; the lunar mare, lunar maria are plains of flood-basaltic lava flows; and basalt is a common rock on the surface of Mars. Molten basalt lava has a low viscosity due to its relatively low silica content (between 45% and 52%), resulting in rapidly moving lava flo ...
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Dike (geology)
In geology, a dike or dyke is a sheet of rock that is formed in a fracture of a pre-existing rock body. Dikes can be either magmatic or sedimentary in origin. Magmatic dikes form when magma flows into a crack then solidifies as a sheet intrusion, either cutting across layers of rock or through a contiguous mass of rock. Clastic dikes are formed when sediment fills a pre-existing crack.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Ed, Stephen Marshak Magmatic dikes A magmatic dike is a sheet of igneous rock that cuts across older rock beds. It is formed when magma fills a fracture in the older beds and then cools and solidifies. The dike rock is usually more resistant to weathering than the surrounding rock, so that erosion exposes the dike as a natural wall or ridge. It is from these natural walls that dikes get their name. Dikes preserve a record of the fissures through which most mafic magma (fluid magma low in silica) reaches the surface. They are studied by geologists for the clues they ...
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Gabbro
Gabbro ( ) is a phaneritic (coarse-grained and magnesium- and iron-rich), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is chemically equivalent to rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt. Much of the Earth's oceanic crust is made of gabbro, formed at mid-ocean ridges. Gabbro is also found as plutons associated with continental volcanism. Due to its variant nature, the term ''gabbro'' may be applied loosely to a wide range of intrusive rocks, many of which are merely "gabbroic". By rough analogy, gabbro is to basalt as granite is to rhyolite. Etymology The term "gabbro" was used in the 1760s to name a set of rock types that were found in the ophiolites of the Apennine Mountains in Italy. It was named after Gabbro, a hamlet near Rosignano Marittimo in Tuscany. Then, in 1809, the German geologist Christian Leopold von Buch used the term more restrictively in his d ...
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Volcanism Of Western Canada
Volcanism of Western Canada has produced lava flows, lava plateaus, lava domes, cinder cones, stratovolcanoes, shield volcanoes, greenstone belts, submarine volcanoes, calderas, diatremes and maars, along with examples of more less common volcanic forms such as tuya A tuya is a flat-topped, steep-sided volcano formed when lava erupts through a thick glacier or ice sheet. They are rare worldwide, being confined to regions which were covered by glaciers and had active volcanism during the same period. As lava ...s and subglacial mounds. Volcanic belts * * * * * * * * * External links Erica A. Massey: A Comparative Study of Glaciovolcanic Palagonitization of Tholeitic and Alkaline Sideromelane in Helgafell, Icland, and Wells Gray-Clearwater Volcanic Filed, BC, Canada. B.Sc., The University of British Columbia, 2014 Volcanic fields * * * See also * * * * ReferencesVolcanoes of Canada . . . . {{Manitoba-stub ...
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Ophiolites
An ophiolite is a section of Earth's oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle that has been uplifted and exposed, and often emplaced onto continental crustal rocks. The Greek word ὄφις, ''ophis'' (''snake'') is found in the name of ophiolites, because of the superficial texture of some of them. Serpentinite especially evokes a snakeskin. (The suffix ''-lite'' is from the Greek ''lithos'', meaning "stone".) Some ophiolites have a green color. The origin of these rocks, present in many mountainous massifs, remained uncertain until the advent of plate tectonic theory. Their great significance relates to their occurrence within mountain belts such as the Alps and the Himalayas, where they document the existence of former ocean basins that have now been consumed by subduction. This insight was one of the founding pillars of plate tectonics, and ophiolites have always played a central role in plate tectonic theory and the interpretation of ancient mo ...
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Volcanism Of British Columbia
Volcanism, vulcanism, volcanicity, or volcanic activity is the phenomenon where solids, liquids, gases, and their mixtures erupt to the surface of a solid-surface astronomical body such as a planet or a moon. It is caused by the presence of a heat source, usually internally generated, inside the body; the heat is generated by various processes, such as radioactive decay or tidal heating. This heat partially melts solid material in the body or turns material into gas. The mobilized material rises through the body's interior and may break through the solid surface. Causes For volcanism to occur, the temperature of the mantle must have risen to about half its melting point. At this point, the mantle's viscosity will have dropped to about 1021 Pascal-seconds. When large scale melting occurs, the viscosity rapidly falls to 103 Pascal-seconds or even less, increasing the heat transport rate a million-fold. The occurrence of volcanism is partially due to the fact that melted materi ...
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