Roof Pendant Rock

In structural geology a roof pendant which also known as a pendant is a mass of country rock that projects downward into and is entirely surrounded by an igneous intrusion such as a batholith or other pluton.

Roof pendant rock.

In roof pendant metamorphosed through the processes of contact metamorphism during which heat and fluids from the intrusion have reconstituted the enclosed rock. Cretaceous granite intruding cambrian metasedimentary rock sierra nevada range. The dinkey creek roof pendant includes schist quartzite hornfelds calc silicate rocks and marble. The intrusions that most commonly contain roof pendants are relatively shallow stocks or batholiths.

These rocks developed along the passive western continental margin of north america during the middle devonian. Roof pendant downward extension of the surrounding rock that protrudes into the upper surface of an igneous intrusive body. These older rocks that are intruded by the granite are called roof pendants because they show the roof of the batholith. The roof pendants occur as isolated pieces of the surrounding rock within the intrusive mass.

They are exposed by erosion of the overlying rock. The presence of roof pendants indicates that the igneous body is being observed near its upper surface. The metamorphic rock composing the mount morrison roof pendant block is the relict of a paleozoic sedimentary sequence overprinted by several deformation events which left the rocks isolated atop the sierra nevada batholith.