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Chapter 2<br />
GEOLOGIC SETTING<br />
2.1. Regional Geology: The Coastal <strong>Maine</strong> Magmatic Province<br />
The area <strong>of</strong> interest lies in the Coastal <strong>Maine</strong> Magmatic Province (Hogan<br />
and Sinha, 1989), a group <strong>of</strong> over 100 plutons <strong>of</strong> granitic through gabbroic<br />
composition located on the eastern coast <strong>of</strong> <strong>Maine</strong> with ages ranging from Late<br />
Silurian to Early Carboniferous. Plutons in this complex display a bimodal<br />
character (Chapman, 1962), with evidence for mafic and felsic magma mingling<br />
(Chapman, 1962; Wiebe, 1993). Gravity studies imply that these plutons are less<br />
than a few kilometers thick with shallow dipping floors and steep walls, underlain<br />
by mafic sheets (Sweeney, 1976; Hodge et al., 1982). These intrusions follow a<br />
NE-trend within fault-bounded continental crust that accreted onto the North<br />
American craton prior to Acadian orogenesis (Hogan and Sinha 1989, Wiebe et<br />
al. 2004). Hogan and Sinha (1989) suggested that the coastal <strong>Maine</strong> magmatic<br />
province intruded the older crust during a post-collisional, extensional rifting<br />
event related to the Acadian Orogeny (Coombs, 1994; Wiebe et al., 1997a).<br />
2.2. Cadillac Mountain Intrusive Complex<br />
The Cadillac Mountain intrusive complex <strong>of</strong> Mount Desert Island (Figure<br />
2.1) is part <strong>of</strong> the Coastal <strong>Maine</strong> Magmatic Province (Hogan and Sinha, 1989).<br />
The complex is roughly circular in map view covering an approximate area <strong>of</strong><br />
14km x 20km, and consists <strong>of</strong> the Cadillac Mountain Granite and the younger<br />
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