Vein reactivation and complex vein intersection geometries in the Taconic slate belt

This paper describes some complex intersection geometries for veins in the Taconic slate belt of western New England, U.S.A. The complexity is primarily a result of the preferential reactivation during slaty cleavage development of one set of veins within an orthogonal system of pre-cleavage veins. The relative age of the precleavage veins also influences the intersection geometry in that the non-reactivated veins, which form the younger set of pre-cleavage veins, act as barriers to the propagation of the syn-cleavage veins. These types of intersection geometries are easily misinterpreted without microscale observations of vein textures and may be more common than is currently appreciated.