Suture (geology)
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A suture is in structural geology a major faultzone through an orogen or mountain range. Sutures separate terranes: tectonic units that have different plate tectonic, metamorphic and paleogeographic histories.
Before the two units were thrusted over each other a piece of crust was in between, that is not or only fragmentarily found back. In plate tectonics sutures are seen as the remains of subduction zones, the two terranes are then interpreted as fragments of different paleocontinents or tectonic plates.
Outcropping sutures can differ in width from a few hundred meters to a couple of kilometers. They can be networks of mylonitic shearzones, brittle faultzones but usually both. Sutures are usually associated with igneous intrusions and tectonic lenses of all kind of lithologies, from plutonic rocks to ophiolitic fragments.
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