On this field trip we looked at plutons in three different tectonic domains in eastern New England: the Avalon Terrane of the Boston area, the Nashoba Terrane to the west, and the Merrimack-Central Main 'medial New England' Terrane to the west of that. These three regions have different stratigraphy, had different metamorphic histories, and experienced different varieties and episodes of igneous activity until they were finally assembled in the mid Paleozoic. The slightly ambitious itinerary permitted us to visit seven of the 11 scheduled stops. For details see the reference below.
| Field trip stops | |
|---|---|
| Stop 1 | Cape Ann Granite |
| Stop 3 | Co-mingling mafic magma and Beverly Syenite |
| Stop 4 | More Beverly Syenite |
| Stop 5 | Salem Highland composite mafic pluton |
| Stop 7 | Danvers alkali gabbro and cumulate syenites |
| Stop 9 | Newbury Volcanics |
| Stop 10 | Sharpners Pond quartz diorite |
Hon, R., Hepburn, J.C., Laird, Jo., 2007, Siluro-Devonian igneous rocks of the easternmost three terranes in southeastern New England: examples from NE Massachusetts and SE New Hampshire: Field Trip F4, p. 23-43, in Thompson, P.J., editor, Guidebook to Field Trips in New Hampshire and Adjacent Maine and Massachusetts, Geological Society of America, Northeastern Section, field trip guidebook for the 42nd annual meeting, Durham, NH.