Temagami Greenstone Belt phases of volcanic activity. These two sequences, known as the Older and Younger volcanic complexes, consist of volcanic rocks ranging in composition from felsic to mafic. The Older Volcanic Complex is composed mainly of felsic lava flows and pyroclastic deposits with smaller amounts of mafic volcanic rocks. It underlies a large portion of northwestern Strathy Township and is penetrated by mafic intrusions, although the Kanichee Intrusion consists of peridotite and pyroxenite, which are ultramafic rocks. Just to the southeast, the Younger Volcanic Complex consists mainly of mafic volcanic rocks that form four geologic formations. The Arsenic Lake Formation is composed
Oceanic plateau and oceanic crust, although they are more mafic than felsic. However, when a plate carrying oceanic crust subducts under a plate carrying an igneous oceanic plateau, the volcanism which erupts on the plateau as the oceanic crust heats up on its descent into the mantle erupts material which is more felsic than the material which makes up the plateau. This represents a step toward creating crust which is increasingly continental in character, being less dense and more buoyant. If an igneous oceanic plateau is subducted underneath another one, or under existing continental crust, the eruptions produced thereby produce material that