Roof Pendants of the Sierra Nevada

The Sierra Nevada mountain range consists of a vast array of different geologic features. One of these features is in the form of what are known as roof pendants. Roof pendants span through the central and southern portions of the eastern Sierra Nevada. Representing the geologic history of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, metamorphic roof pendants offer a glimpse into the past. These features can be described in large scale as a discontinuous chain of metamorphically altered rock dating back before the Sierra Nevada batholith formation. Defined by Paul C. Bateman [1992], a roof pendant is “A mass of metamorphic rock that is entirely surrounded by plutonic rock and presumed to be a downward projection of rocks that overlaid the plutonic rocks before erosion.” In this report, an overview of the roof pendants within the Sierra Nevada range is given. Specifically, it was found that the processes that resulted in roof pendants took place in the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic age. Using data from several sources, it was also concluded that metasomatism, and contact metamorphism played the biggest roles in the formation of the roof pendants. Data from research on these features is immense. Because most scientific reports on the roof pendants deal with one specific pendant per report, much data can be reported on this topic. To deal with this, general trends were identified by correlating scientific work done on separate roof pendants.