Light-pink to gray, tan-weathering, fine- to medium-grained, rarely porphyritic, well-foliated (not lineated) granitic gneiss, composed of microcline, quartz, oligoclase (or albite), biotite, and magnetite, minor muscovite, and local garnet. Sterling Plutonic Suite is here restricted to the Hope Valley terrane. (The Hope Valley together with the Esmond-Dedham terrane make up the Avalon superterrane of this report.) The Ponaganset Gneiss and the Ten Rod Granite Gneiss lie within the Esmond-Dedham terrane and are therefore removed from the Sterling. The Ponaganset is interpreted as an intensely deformed phase of the Esmond Plutonic Suite. The Sterling, as defined here, includes only the Hope Valley Alaskite Gneiss and the Potter Hill Granite Gneiss. These rocks intrude the Plainfield Formation and the Waterford Group in southeastern CT and western Rhode Island and are Late Proterozoic in age. The gneiss of the Potter Hill is mainly weathered, deeply stained, somewhat crumbly, and generally slabby. Contains xenoliths of the Plainfield Formation. Is distinguished from Hope Valley by its higher biotite content (Skehan and Rast, 1990).