The framework of the Cordilleran orogen of northwestern North America is commonly depicted as a 'collage' of terranes - crustal blocks containing records of a variety of geodynamic environments including continental fragments, pieces of island arc crust and oceanic crust.

The series of maps available here are derived from a GIS compilation of terranes based on the map first published by Colpron et al. (2007) and more recently revised by Nelson et al. (2013). These maps are presented here in digital formats including ArcGIS file geodatabase (.gdb), shapefiles (.shp and related files), Google Earth (.kmz), as well as graphic files (.pdf). The GIS data includes terrane polygons and selected major Late Cretaceous and Tertiary strike-slip faults. Graphic PDF files derived from the GIS compilation were prepared for the Northern Cordillera (Alaska, Yukon and BC), the Canadian Cordillera (BC and Yukon), Yukon, and British Columbia. These maps are intended for page-size display (~1:5,000,000 and smaller). Polygons are accurate to ~1 km for Yukon and BC, ~5 km for Alaska. More detailed geological data are available from both BCGC, USGS and YGS websites. Descriptions of the terranes, their tectonic evolution and metallogeny can be found in Colpron et al. (2007), Nelson and Colpron (2007), Colpron and Nelson (2009), Nelson et al. (2013) and references therein.

The terrane map project is a collaborative effort of the BC Geological Survey and the Yukon Geological Survey.

Distributed from GeoYukon by the Government of Yukon . Discover more digital map data and interactive maps from Yukon's digital map data collection.

For more information: [email protected]