Salinian Block

The Salinian Block is largely granitic, in accordance with its continental crustal origin.

This composition contrasts sharply, and paradoxically, with much of the crust to its east, which is sedimentary and oceanic in origin.

The block's granitic core, fragments of the batholith of the Peninsular Ranges, shares its origins with the Sierra Nevada mountains far to the east.

In the years since the 1974 study by Johnson and Normark the connection with the southern Sierra Nevada has been questioned, stating that "it more nearly resembles granite in the Mojave Desert".

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