Many Miles of Strata Eroded Off Batholiths
Robert E. Gentet
© 2011
“New evidence, including the age of granitic rocks in actual years, points to a more complex story; even as erosion was stripping the mountains to carry their fragments to the western sea, parts of the granitic core were still hot, perhaps still moving upward. Some parts may still be rising.
“At any rate, erosion during the Cretaceous and part of the early Tertiary Period wore the mountains down – down far enough to lay bare the tops of the gold-bearing quartz veins formed deep within the range. Several geologists have tried to estimate the amount of rock torn from the mountains, using various types of calculations. Although they do not agree exactly, all suggest that 9 vertical miles (15 km ) or more of rock was removed during this 25-million-year erosive interval, or .5 to 1.5 ft (15 to 45 cm) per thousand years” (Hill, p. 244).
Naturally, uniformitarian geology invokes millions of years for this erosion to occur. While both authors of this paper reject such immense ages, this period of great erosion stripped away miles of strata overlying the gold deposits. It effectively un-roofed the overburden on top of the Sierran granitic rocks and made way for the time when the gold in the veins could also be eroded and re-deposited in large streams which eventually emptied into a shallow marine bay then filling the present Great California Valley.
Hill, Mary. 2000. GEOLOGY OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. University of California Press. Berkeley. Los Angeles. London.