DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY TO ACCOMPANY MAP MF-750 RECONNAISSANCE GEOLOGIC MAP OF PRE-CENOZOIC BASEMENT ROCKS, NORTHERN SANTA LUCIA R&~GE, MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIFO~~IA By Donald c. Ross INTRODUCTION The northern Santa Lucia Range rises abruptly from several plutons in the Ventana Cones area and pro­ the Pacific Ocean shoreline to a coastal ridge as high posed the first mappable "formation" in the all­ as 1000 m; the highest point is Junipero Serra Peak at encompassing Sur Series. Wiebe also generously 1786 m (5862 ft). The range is strongly dissected by lent me samples and thin sections of typical rocks canyons with steep slopes that commonly are densely from several of the plutons he recognized. There covered with vegetation. Outcrops range from poor to have also been specialized studies of the basement locally ve'y good, but vegetation limits access to many rocks such as Compton's (1960) on the charnockitic outcrop areas. Roadcuts and trails and some of the tonalite and veins· near Cone Peak and Hutton's canyon bottoms provide the best places to study and (1959) on heavy minerals from the basement rocks sample the rocks of the range. in the Monterey area. The outcropping rocks of the northern Santa Lucia A study of the Ventana Wilderness area by Range are largely medium- to high-grade metamorphic Pearson, Hayes, and Fillo (1967), largely a sam­ rocks and granitic rocks. Overlying Cretaceous and pling program to evaluate the mineral potential Tertiary sedimentary rocks are preserved chiefly as · of the area, provided me with a number of semi- downfaulted remnants of a presumably extensive blanket quantitative spectrographic analyses of plutonic that once overlay the basement block. There are also rocks (R. C. Pearson, written commun., 1968), but a few small scraps of Miocene volcanic rock preserved no new mapping or delineation of plutonic or meta­ within the range. The metamorphic and granitic rocks morphic units resulted from this study. of the range (east of the Sur fault zone) are the focus of this map text. METAMORPHIC ROCKS The coverage of the reconnaissance study is gener­ Strongly deformed medium- to high-grade meta­ ally indicated on figure 1, which notes my data points morphic rocks underlie more than 900 km2 of the in the range. This work was greatly supplemented by northern Santa Lucia Range, making this by far the published reports and by specimens and information most extensive metamorphic terrane in the Salinian from the authors specified below. block. Both Compton (1966a) and Wiebe (1970a), who have done the most detailed work on the meta­ Studies of these rocks began as long ago as 1893 morphic rocks, noted the predominance of quartzo­ when Lawson published a report on the geology around feldspathic granofels and gneiss and impure bio­ Carmel Bay (fig. 2). He named and described the Santa tite-feldspar quartzite. Marble, calc-hornfels, Lucia Granite, the unit here termed the porphyritic and amphibolite (at least in part derived from granodiorite of Monterey. Unfortunately Lawson's name carbonate rocks) are locally abundant. Schist is "Santa Lucia" was later applied indiscriminately to all definitely subordinate except for the belt of the many granitic units in the range, and its use was metamorphic rocks on the Sierra de Salinas, where even extended into the Gabilan Range. Now the t~rm has virtually the only rock type is biotite quartzo­ no precise or even general meaning, and I suggest that feldspathic schist. it be abandoned. Most of the metamorphic rocks appear to be high Three thesis studies led to later publication of in the amphibolite facies and contain widely dis­ geologic maps and brief descriptions of the basement tributed sillimanite and red garnet. West of the rocks of the Point Sur quadrangle (Trask, 1926), Lucia Palo Colorado-Coast Ridge fault zone sillimanite quadrangle (Reiche, 1937), and Jamesburg quadrangle is absent, but hypersthene is found both in the (Fiedler, 1944) (fig. 2). Though these reports differ­ gneiss and in associated "charnockitic" plutonic entiated only three basement units (granitic rocks, rocks, suggesting that at least locally the granu­ marble, and other metamorphic rocks), they did provide lite facies (Compton, 1960) was reached. valuable data on the distribution of the basement and the major faults cutting it. Considering what the One of the major frustrations for most workers logistical problems must have been when those studies in this metamorphic terrane has been the lack of were made, they are indeed remarkable. Both Reiche's marker beds and the consequent inability to es­ and Fiedler's thesis studies contained numerous modal tablish a stratigraphic s.ection. Compton (1966a), analyses of granitic and metamorphic rocks; more than in what he described as "a fairly thorough study 100 thin sections of these rocks were made available of the Junipero Serra area," noted that "only one to me by the Geology Department of th~ University of marble and one quartzite unit proved thick and California at Berkeley. distinctive enough to be mapped readily across the brushy terrain." He was able to follow these two Trask (1926, p. 134) proposed the name Sur Series units for about 5 km. These two parallel units "as a comprehensive name for the schist series of the are shown trending eastward along the northern Southern Coast Ranges." The term has indeed become part of the Junipero Serra Peak quadrangle (sheet comprehensive and now is synoymous for "metamorphic 1). Wiebe (1970b) made a breakthrough when he was rocks of the Salinian block"--it now masks real differ­ able to trace a distinctive graphite-bearing unit ences in the metamorphic suite, and I suggest that its for more than 30 km; this unit ("graphitic and use also be discontinued. pyritic belt" on sheet 1) is ·described in the following section. Geologic mapping of the basement rocks of the Junipero Serra quadrangle by Compton led to a summary My reconnaissance suggests that the metamorphic paper (Compton, 1966a) and a map compiled jointly with terrane in the northern part of the map area can T. W. Dibblee, Jr. (1973). Specimens of typical gra­ be subdivided into seven subparallel lithologic nitic rocks from this quadrangle kindly lent to me by belts that may represent stratigraphic units (fig. Compton provided much of the basis for delineation of 3). Belts 1, 3, and 6 are largely quartzofelds­ the granitic formations in that area. pathic gneiss and granofels that probably would not be separable except for the more distinctive In the mid-1960's the most detailed study to date in intervening lithologic belts. The "section," the range was made by Wiebe (1970a,b). He delineated though highly folded and faulted, shows no large- 1 scale repetition of the more distinctive lithologic pear to thin markedly to the south. Neither unit belts. Three of the unit contacts are probably marked has been found south of the Willow Creek fault, by faults whose magnitude is uncertain (between units 1 but admittedly the search has been very limited. and 2, postgranitic faulting; .between units 2 and 3, Perhaps there is. a facies change to the south in probably major pregranitic faulting; and between units these two units, but in this structurally complex 6 and 7, postgranitic faulting). terrane that is sheer speculation. Beyond these speculations about lithologic belts Coast Ridge belt--West of the Palo Colorado and that may have formational significance, we know little Coast Ridge faults and their possible extensions about the original sedimentary section. No fossils, the Coast Ridge belt is characterized by the top-determining features, or other features to hint at general abundance of marble, in contrast to locally the age or the relative age of any part of the section abundant marble elsewhere in the range. The Coast have been reported from these rocks. The general char­ Ridge belt is also marked by hornfels and granofels acter of the metamorphic rocks, except for the schist that appear to be generally less well banded than of Sierra-de Salinas, suggests that they were derived the gneissic rocks to the east. Also, coarse from a generally well bedded sequence of relatively flakes of graphite are characteristic in impure quartz-rich clastic rocks and locally abundant carbon­ quartzites and quartzofeldspathic granofels, as ate rocks--sandstone, siltstone, shale, marly beds, well as in the marble, and the graphite appears to and limestone, that may once have been part of the be more widespread and possibly coarser than in the lower and middle Paleozoic section of the Cordilleran rocks to the east. Amphibolite is also relatively mi~eosyncline. In striking contrast, the schist of abundant. Probably the association of abundant Sferra de Salinas, probably a metagraywacke, may be marble and abundant amphibolite is no coincidence-­ Mesozoic, as such rocks are virtually unknown in field relations suggest that some amphibolite is Paleozoic sections of the region. The significance of probably derived from marble. I suspect that most this possibly exotic schist in the Salinian block is of the amphibolite is not derived from mafic vol­ discussed in more detail in a separate report (Ross, canic rocks, as is commonly assumed in such meta­ in press). morphic terranes. No definite volcanic or volcani­ clastic units have been identified, and the general Metamorphic units lithology of the section makes the presence of this kind of rock unlikely here. Graphitic and pyritic belt (Los Padres unit of Wiebe, 1970b)--The graphitic and pyritic belt has been Quartzofeldspathic rocks--The quar.tzofeldspathic traced by l..Jiebe (1970b) for more than 30 km. It is the unit is essentially what is left over after all of only relatively continuous lithologic marker so far the more distinct metamorphic units have been sub­ discovered in the metamorphic section.