The Cheyenne Belt is the tectonic

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...

 suture zone between the Archean

Archean

The Archean , also spelled Archeozoic or Archæozoic) is a geologic eon before the Paleoproterozoic Era of the Proterozoic Eon, before 2.5 Ga ago. Instead of being based on stratigraphy, this date is defined chronometrically...

-age Wyoming craton

Wyoming craton

The Wyoming craton is a craton located in the west-central United States and western Canada – more specifically, in Montana, Wyoming, southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and parts of northern Utah...

 to the north and the Paleoproterozoic

Paleoproterozoic

The Paleoproterozoic is the first of the three sub-divisions of the Proterozoic occurring between . This is when the continents first stabilized...

-age Yavapai province to the south. In runs through the southeastern quadrant of the state of Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

, USA. It was formed during the Paleoproterozoic Medicine Bow orogeny between 1.78 and 1.74 billion years ago when island arc

Island arc

An island arc is a type of archipelago composed of a chain of volcanoes which alignment is arc-shaped, and which are situated parallel and close to a boundary between two converging tectonic plates....

s collided with the Wyoming craton. This is an example of a convergent boundary

Convergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary , is an actively deforming region where two tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide...

 in Tectonics.

The exposed geology consists of a series of northeast-striking, steeply-dipping

Strike and dip

Strike and dip refer to the orientation or attitude of a geologic feature. The strike line of a bed, fault, or other planar feature is a line representing the intersection of that feature with a horizontal plane. On a geologic map, this is represented with a short straight line segment oriented...

 shear zone

Shear zone

A shear zone is a very important structural discontinuity surface in the Earth's crust and upper mantle. It forms as a response to inhomogeneous deformation partitioning strain into planar or curviplanar high-strain zones. Intervening blocks stay relatively unaffected by the deformation...

s.