Norfolk Basin (Massachusetts)

The Norfolk Basin is synclinal basin, partially bounded by faults, running east-northeast between the Dedham Block and the Foxborough Block. It contains the folded and cleaved, but unmetamorphosed Wamsutta Formation and Pondville Conglomerate, which both formed in the Pennsylvanian, also known as the Late Carboniferous 323 to 298 million years ago. The middle of the basin is close to the village of Pondville.

The basin is separated from the Proterozoic Dedham Granite of the southeastern Massachusetts batholith by the Ponkapoag Fault. Further east, the Ponkapoag Fault cuts out the Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks, so that the Ordovician-Silurian Quincy Granite and the Cambrian Braintree Formation directly contact the Dedham Granite. The Ponkapoag Fault, near Weymouth, also splits up the Wamsutta Formation between the Norfolk Basin and the nearby Narragansett Basin.

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