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Abstract The E5 transect extends southeastward from the Cumberland Plateau across the Appalachian orogen, the Atlantic Coastal Plain, Continental Shelf and Slope, and the Blake Plateau Basin; it is a transect through the Precambrian-early Paleozoic and Mesozoic-Tertiary continental margins of North America. The transect consists primarily of a 100-km-wide geologic strip map, a cross section, and supporting geophysical data. The cross section is based on surface geology, surface and subsurface data from Coastal Plain and offshore drill holes, shipboard and aeromagnetic data, and gravity and seismic reflection data, including the ADCOH and COCORP southern Appalachians lines. Elements of the map and cross section include: (1) the Appalachian foreland fold-thrust belt and western Blue Ridge Late Proterozoic-Paleozoic continental margin; (2) the eastern Blue Ridge-Chauga belt-Inner Piedmont oceanic-continental fragment terrane; (3) the volcanicplutonic Carolina terrane containing the middle to late Paleozoic high-grade Kiokee belt; and (4) a major geophysical ly defined terrane beneath the Coastal Plain. Three Paleozoic sutures may be present along the section line: the Hayesville thrust, the Inner Piedmont-Carolina terrane boundary (Taconic or Acadian suture?), and an eastern boundary of the Carolina terrane (Alleghanian? suture) in the subsurface beneath the Coastal Plain. The modern continental margin consists of the terrestrial clastics-filled Triassic-Jurassic basins and offshore marine Jurassic- Cretaceous clastic-carbonate bank succession overlain by younger Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments. Above the Late Cretaceous onshore unconformity lie Cenozoic sediments that represent seaward prograding of the shelf-slope, truncated by Miocene to recent wave abrasion and currents.

A region of migmatitic felsic paragneiss and pelitic schist containing concordant pods of serpentinite, talc schist, talc-amphibole schist, amphibolite, and metagabbro—here called the Burks Mountain complex—occurs in the southeastern limb of the Kiokee antiform, an Alleghanian D 3 structure in the eastern Piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina. A similar region of migmatitic felsic paragneiss containing small pods of metamorphosed mafic and ultramafic rocks, which occurs in the northwestern limb of the Kiokee antiform, is inferred to be a continuation of the Burks Mountain complex across the crest of the antiform. The composition of the felsic paragneiss and pelitic schist of the Burks Mountain complex suggests derivation from graywacke and shale, respectively. Relict textures preserved in mafic and ultramafic rocks of the complex, along with preliminary whole-rock geochemistry, indicate derivation from ultramafic tectonite (harzburgite), olivine-pyroxene cumulate (wehrlite, olivine pyroxenite), pyroxene-plagioclase cumulate (gabbro, anorthositic gabbro), and mafic volcanic rock. These protoliths suggest an origin as part of a cumulate mafic and ultramafic intrusive and extrusive complex with some associated mantle tectonite. The complex was disrupted prior to or during amphibolite facies regional metamorphism. The mechanism of disruption is not clear. Possible modes of origin include accumulation as an olistostrome, accumulation in a subduction-related accretionary complex, and formation as extreme boudinage during a regional deformation event. The crystalline rocks in the core of the Kiokee belt (including the Burks Mountain complex) are contained in the footwall of a major ductile shear zone (the Modoc zone) that experienced oblique, down to the north-northeast displacement during the early part of the Alleghanian orogeny. Prior to the Alleghanian orogeny, the Burks Mountain complex was located beneath rocks of the Carolina slate belt that are presently exposed north of the Modoc zone. The Burks Mountain complex may have been derived from a unit within the Carolina slate belt or from a Precambrian basement(?) unit beneath the Carolina slate belt. Alternatively, in view of a unique lithostratigraphy, the Burks Mountain complex may be included in a terrane, exotic with respect to both North America and the Carolina slate belt, which was tectonically incorporated into the Appalachians prior to the Alleghanian orogeny.