Abstract The Wyoming province is the region in Wyoming and adjacent states underlain by rocks of Archean age (Plate 2). It is an Archean craton bordered on the east and south by younger Precambrian provinces (Plate 1). Precambrian rocks are only exposed in the cores of the Laramide (Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary) uplifts, and outcrops constitute less than 10 percent of the area underlain by Archean basement. Between uplifts, basement rocks are covered by thick Phanerozoic strata, so that extrapolations of geology from uplift to uplift are generally tenuous. Reconstructing the Archean history of the Wyoming province is further complicated by deformation associated with the late Mesozoic fold and thrust belt along the western margin. Although the Archean record is fragmentary, the basement uplifts generally afford excellent exposure. The northern and northwestern margins of the Wyoming province are poorly constrained. Archean rocks are known as far north as the Little Rocky Mountains of Montana (Peterman, 1981). According to King (1976), Archean and Early Proterozoic dates are intermingled at the northwest margin of the province in a wide zone that exhibits a gradational change from Archean dates in central Montana to Early Proterozoic dates to the northwest, reflecting increasing influence of post-Archean thermal events. The southwestern and southern margins of the Wyoming province are also poorly constrained. Archean rocks have been reported from several ranges in the Cordilleran orogenic belt, such as the Albion and Raft River Ranges (Armstrong and Hills, 1967) and possibly the Ruby Mountains of Nevada (A. W. Snoke, personal communication, 1986).

The Colorado Proterozoic province is separated from Archean rocks of the Wyoming province by a major structural boundary, the Cheyenne belt. Proterozoic rocks south of the Cheyenne belt are exposed in the Sierra Madre, Medicine Bow Mountains, and Laramie Range of southern Wyoming. They consist of metavolcanic units, metagraywacke, pelitic schist and gneiss, amphibolite, and felsic to mafic intrusive rocks that locally resemble rocks of central Colorado. North of the Cheyenne belt, Archean granite and gneiss of the Wyoming craton are overlain by a Late Archean and Early Proterozoic supracrustal sequence that contains quartzite, metadolomite, phyllite, and subordinate metavolcanic rocks. The eugeoclinal character of the metamorphic rocks south of the Cheyenne belt contrasts sharply with the dominantly siliciclastic supracrustal rocks north of the Cheyenne belt. Although specific sequences south of the belt have not yet been correlated between the Sierra Madre, Medicine Bow Mountains, and Laramie Range, similarities in age, lithology, and major element chemistry suggest that they are part of a single geologic terrane. Macroscopic structure and microscopic kinematic indicators within the Cheyenne belt suggest that accretion of the Proterozoic rocks of northern Colorado to the Archean Wyoming craton was accomplished primarily by large-scale thrusting. Following accretion of individual thrust blocks, the boundary zone was steepened by folding and reactivated locally during a period of strike-slip movement. Presence of similar lithologies and shear zones south of the Cheyenne belt suggests that the southern margin of the Wyoming craton may have been a long-lived zone of crustal accretion.