Fourmile Gneiss (MAOZfm;0)

State	Massachusetts
Name	Fourmile Gneiss
Geologic age	Ordovician, Cambrian, or Proterozoic Z
Original map label	OZfm
Comments	Part of Bronson Hill Zone (Ordovician and Older Rocks) Swanzey, Pauchaug, Monson, and Fourmile Gneisses represent metamorphosed intrusive igneous rocks and yield ages from 454 to 442+3/-2 Ma. Therefore, ages range from early Late through latest Ordovician. Authors suggest that they represent the plutonic root of a calc-alkaline magmatic arc at least 250 km long that was produced partly or entirely on a continental margin in the Late Ordovician. The overlying Ammonoosuc Volcanics and Partridge Formation, rather that resting unconformably on these plagioclase-rich plutonic gneiss, are now known to have had a magmatic history overlapping with them and are approximately the same age (Tucker and Robinson, 1990) per MA015.
Primary rock type	biotite gneiss
Secondary rock type	amphibolite
Other rock types
Lithologic constituents	Major Metamorphic > Amphibolite Metamorphic > Gneisslayered to massive biotite-feldspar gneiss
Map references	Unpublished Digital Geologic Map of Massachusetts received from Rudi Hon at Boston College in 1998.
Unit references	Zen, E-An (ed.), Goldsmith, R. (comp.), Ratcliffe, N.M. (comp.), Robinson, P. (comp.), Stanley, R.S. (comp.), Hatch, N.L., Jr., Shride, A.F., Weed, E.G.A., Wones, D.R., 1983, Bedrock Geologic Map of Massachusetts: U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, scale 1: 250,000. Tucker, R.D. and Robinson, Peter, 1990, Age and setting of the Bronson Hill magmatic arc; a re-evaluation based on U-Pb zircon ages in southern New England: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 102, no. 10, p. 1404-1419.
Geographic coverage	Franklin - Hampden - Hampshire