1. Met'ula Group

Met’ula Group

The oldest rock units exposed in the greater Veldt region, mostly occurring in the foothill country to the south of the Veldt proper, as well as neighboring Corvea borderlands, and a few scattered exposures further north. A package of metasedimentary rocks, with at least a half dozen named sub-units, the Met'ula Group records a broad swath of history when the continental margin was varying in depth and composition, mostly transitioning from a deep marine environment to a terrestrial one through tectonic uplift. The base member of the unit, which makes up most of it’s exposure in the Veldt region, is composed of a thick package of slate. Further up the sequence, this transitions to pockets of dirty carbonate, and finally thin layers of fossiliferous limestones, indicating a progressive shallowing of the marine depositional environment. The tectonic uplift is also thought to be what caused the units to become steeply dipping to the south. The Met’ula Group is known to host a few very small deposits of gold, silver, and mercury, but were never of significant economic interest. Slate from the foothills is quarried and traded as a building material, primarily as roof tiles in settlements across the Veldt. The group is named for the small village of Met'ula, which sits close to several type-sections for assorted member units. Drilling and scanning surveys have shown the Trans-Veldt Intrusive Suit cuts through these units at depth, giving their relative ages. The top of this group is marked by the Eastern Kael Unconformity. It is thought there may be a large thrust fault complex very deep under the Veldt region that brought a section of oceanic crust to rest on a continental plate, since such deep water rock types are found so far inland.

Bright Peak Formation: The youngest unit of the Met’Ula Group, it is a mix of shallow carbonate deposits and clastics that show a near-shore depositional environment. The carbonates seem to be comprised of ancient reefs and shellfish beds, while the clastics are fine grained silts and sands, likely transported by longshore drift. No evidence of beach deposits have been found in this formation. Known only from a single location, Bright Peak, on the Kael-Corvea border. There is debate as to whether this unit is distinct enough to continue being considered its own formation, or if it should thought of as another member of the Cortell Carbonates.

Cortell Carbonates: There is much debate about whether the Cortell Carbonates should be classed as three separate formations, or one formation with three distinct members. This debate has never been fully settled, since this carbonate sequence has poor preservation in the geologic record and is in widely scattered locations, making them seem much more distinct than they perhaps are. In any case, they are usually treated jointly in more modern literature, as they appear to represent a relatively unbroken record of the transition from deep to shallow water carbonate deposition environment.

Top Member: The topmost member formed in relatively shallow waters, and is both fossiliferous and interlayered with thin silt deposits.

Middle Member: The middle unit seems to have formed in a continental shelf environment, and has traces of hydrocarbons that give it a darker color and sometimes fetid smell.

Basal Member: The bottommost unit consists of deep water carbonates interspersed with chert nodules. It is this basal member which hosts the rare small metal deposits found in the Foothills.

Blackford Slate: While mostly exposed in the foothill regions to the south, a famous outcrop of Slate is found at the town of Blackford, the dark colored slate giving the town its name. There, at a widening part of the Simanda River, the shallow, rocky river bottom provides easy crossing for land vehicles, with the town-island in the middle of the river providing a place of safety and refuge. Given the steeply dipping direction of the Blackford Shale throughout the formation, it is thought that this northward surface expression was the result of a fault which brought part of it up-section. This has not been confirmed by drilling.