Slave Craton

Palaeomap of North American and Scandinavian cratons, basement rocks, and orogenic belts. Slave Craton is in the top left in red and bright green

The Slave Craton is an Archaean craton in the north-western Canadian Shield, in Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

It has some of the oldest rocks on Earth.^[1]

It has ~2.73–2.63 Ga (billion years-old) greenstones and turbidite sequences. These are the geologic deposits of a turbidity current. This type of gravity flow put vast amounts of clastic sediment into the deep ocean.

Large parts of the craton are underlain by even older gneiss and granitoid units.

Slave Craton Media

Geological map of north-western Canada. Slave Craton is marked with A.
A 4.03 Ga sample from the small Acasta River
An east–west cross-section of the Slave Province showing its basic stratigraphy and margins

References

↑ Bleeker W; Davis B; Ketchum J; Stern R; Sircombe K; Waldron J. 2004. The Slave Craton from on top: the crustal view. Geological Survey of Canada.

[1] Bleeker W; Davis B; Ketchum J; Stern R; Sircombe K; Waldron J. 2004. The Slave Craton from on top: the crustal view. Geological Survey of Canada.

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