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
Craton craton. Earth's surface was probably broken up into many small plates with volcanic islands and arcs in great abundance. Small protocontinents (cratons) formed as crustal rock was melted and remelted by hot spots and recycled in subduction zones. There were no large continents in the early Archean, and small protocontinents were probably the norm in the Mesoarchean because they were prevented from coalescing into larger units by the high rate of geologic activity. These felsic protocontinents (cratons) probably formed at hot spots from a variety of sources: mafic magma melting more felsic rocks, partial melting of mafic rock, and from