摘要
Geologists （especially in North America） now use ＂terrane＂ for a tectonic block while use ＂terrain＂ for a topographic area. This is different from the world of literature where ＂terrain＂ is a British English word and ＂terrane＂ is an American English word and both mean the same thing--an area of ground with a particular geographic or geologic character. Terranes, as defined by the late Peter Coney and his colleagues in a seminal paper in 1980 （Coney et al., Nature, vol. 288, pp. 329-333）, are fault-bounded areas, each area having its own internal homogeneity and continuity of stratigraphy, tectonic style and history. The concept of terranes was first developed by W.P. Irwin in 1972 in view of the complex mosaic geology of California; the concept was then extended to the entire Cordilleran- Alaskan belt by other geologists, especially P. Coney.
