Talk:Great Valley Sequence

Flysch and molasse in the Great Valley and related rocks to the west?
These are (I think) Alpine terms for processes that also occurred in the accretion of California (and the rest of the active margins of the Western US) -- but I don't think these terms are widely used by California and Western US geologists. Is this the impression of others? The terms I've seen used are descriptive: "deep water marine" -- for (eg) radiolaran cherts & such with (basically) no clastic components; nearer-shore marine clastics such as the Monterey formation, and the marine graywackes, the latter largely composed of near-shore turbidite sediments, and hence inboard (mostly) of the finer-grained Monterey shales. The Great Valley sequence is one I haven't really learned yet (but I'm working up to it).

I'm basically a newcomer to California geology, and I'm learning it specifically for SLO County and generally for the Coast Ranges north and south of there. I haven't really tackled the Transverse Ranges yet. I'm a transplant from Arizona/New Mexico, with a lot of field time in Nevada, and a fair bit in northern Sonora. Much different, and more complex and broken-up, out here! --Pete Tillman (talk) 06:46, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Probably would be better to use descriptive terminology relevant to the local geology and avoid "them ferrin terms" that might just serve to confuse. Have fun with your new project. Vsmith (talk) 15:10, 23 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Flysch wouldn't be correct, as it really refers to marine sediments deposited in a foreland basin as a mountain building episode causes the continental crust to flex downward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flysch. The Sacramento & San Joaquin Basins during the Cretaceous were a forearc basin formed on the oceanward side of a volcanic arc, above a subducting plate and ponded behind the growing accretionary prism.   The actual sedimentary rock types are similar, the facies are similar, but it's a different tectonic setting and not how flysch and molasse are used as terms. RockDr (talk) 18:30, 23 July 2022 (UTC)