Northern Superior Province
The 3.9-2.8 Ga Northern Superior superterrane (NSS) is at the northern fringe of the Superior Province and is dominated by granitic and gneissic rocks. It consists of an arcuate belt extending from Assean Lake, Manitoba to Porpoise Cove in northern Quebec (Percival, 2003). Supracrustal units in the Assean Lake complex of Manitoba include greywacke with detrital zircon ages up to 3.9 Ga, iron formation and mafic to intermediate volcanic rocks. The ancient rocks have been strongly reworked by granitoid magmatism at 3.2-3.1, 2.85-2.81 and 2.74-2.71 Ga, representing evolution in a continental magmatic arc setting, followed by amphibolite-facies metamorphism at 2.68 and 2.61 Ga that may have resulted from collisions during tectonic assembly. The NSS merged with the North Caribou terrane (3.0-2.8 Ga) at 2.72 Ga. The NSS is bounded to the south by the North Kenyon fault, which juxtaposes it with the Oxford-Stull terrane. Correlation is uncertain between the NSS and units of similar antiquity in the Inukjuak domain of northern Quebec. (Percival, 2006).
It is here that very recently the oldest rocks on earth have been found.
Read more about this topic: Superior Craton
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