ABSTRACT This field guide highlights the Paleozoic geology of the Knoxville, Tennessee, area, framed in the context of the historic, halcyon days of Knox County’s marble industry and the railroads built to serve the area’s many limestone quarries and mills. The Three Rivers Rambler excursion train (the “Rambler”) is pulled by an 1890 “Consolidation” steam locomotive, which has been restored and is now operated by the Knoxville & Holston River Railroad Co., Inc. The Rambler route follows the north bank of the Tennessee River; passes through a sequence of Lower and Middle Ordovician carbonates, shales, and sandstones of the Knox and Chickamauga Groups; crosses the High Bridge at the confluence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers; and ends near Marbledale Quarry before returning to Knoxville. The two geologic groups are dominated by carbonates and lie in the syncline that contained most of the commercial marble that was quarried in the Knoxville area for the past 150 years. Exposures of the Holston Formation, a limestone commercially referred to as Holston [M]arble, were excavated to build the railroad ~125 years ago. It is possible to observe four of the seven formations making up the Knox and Chickamauga Groups along the route, but the outcrops are not accessible during typical railroad operations or by automobile. Arrangements were made for a field trip during the 2018 Geological Society of America Southeastern Section meeting, and this guide provides details for four selected exposures between Knoxville and the Forks of the River Marble District, with three optional stops. Only during the field trip, passengers will be able to disembark the train to examine carbonate and shale outcrops, structures, and discuss facies relationships of the foreland basin bryozoan reef deposits along the western flank of the Taconic (Sevier) foredeep. In addition to the local geology, this field guide describes the key role of railroads in the development of the Knox County marble industry, the history of what is today the Knoxville & Holston River Railroad, a corporate descendent of the 1887 Knoxville Belt Railroad Company, and the Tennessee Marble industry.

ABSTRACT Hotspots represent the ephemeral introduction of nutrients into an environment, and occur in both the modern and geologic past. The annual deposition of deciduous leaves in temperate forests, tree falls, animal excrement, and vertebrate carcass deposition all result in the pulsed introduction of nutrients to an ecosystem. Hotspots are critical for providing limiting nutrients, including nitrogen and carbon, to be incorporated into soil microbial biomass and plant biomass. For vertebrate ­carcasses, following the release of labile compounds from soft tissues, bones are often left behind, and provide a more recalcitrant reservoir of organic carbon and nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and, in some environments, water, for micro- and macro-fauna. Taphonomy—the physical, chemical, and biological processes following plant or animal death—studied in modern systems can be used to interpret hotspot processes operating in the past. East Tennessee is a region where studies of modern and fossil vertebrate hotspots have provided new insights into taphonomy. This guide describes two hotspot localities in east Tennessee—the Miocene-aged Gray Fossil Site in Gray, Tennessee, and the Anthropology Research Facility (“the Body Farm”) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a human decomposition experimental site. The goal of this interdisciplinary field guide is to provide a view of nutrient hotspots from their formation in the modern to their preservation over geologic time.

Abstract The mining of zinc in Tennessee dates back to 1854 although the presence of zinc minerals had been reported as early as 1844 by Gerard Troost, the first State Geologist. When the Mossy Creek open pit mine, in what is now Jefferson City, Jefferson County, was opened, it became the first mine in what is now known as the Mascot-Jefferson City Zinc District. In these early years, only the oxidized ore was removed, and mining stopped when the sulfide ore zone was reached because a method to treat “hard ore”, as it was called, had not yet been developed. Mining continued at the Mossy Creek operation until 1858, then ceased through the Civil War years until 1867, at which time the property was taken over by the East Tennessee Zinc Company. This company built a smelter to manufacture zinc oxide, but after only a few months of operation, the company became involved in litigation and mining ceased. In 1882, the Mossy Creek property was sold to the Eades, Mixter and Heald Zinc Company which operated intermittently until 1894, becoming the first substantial zinc mining company in Tennessee as well as the first to produce significant amounts of sulfide ore. This latter was made possible by the construction of a zinc smelter at Clinton, Tennessee, some 45 rail-miles to the west. The Mossy Creek mine was operated or prospected only sporadically thereafter, and was closed by its final owner, the American Zinc Company, in 1919. In the meantime, the discovery of lead and zinc ore in the Powell River area of Claiborne and Union Counties, some 30 miles northwest of Jefferson City, caught the attention of the mine operators. In 1883, the New Prospect mine was opened with only the lead recovered. By 1889, Eades, Mixter and Heald had taken over, erected a mill and mined the property intermittently until 1897. The lead was handpicked and shipped to New Jersey while the zinc was barged to the smelter at Clinton. There was little further activity until World War II when the very high grade pillars were robbed. The only other producing mine in the Powell River district was at Straight Creek. It operated from 1880 to 1894, the latter part of this period by Eades, Mixter and Heald Zinc Company, which also built a mill. Beyond this there was only a short period of exploration and mining from 1906 to 1908 and another effort by Universal Exploration Company in the latter part of World War II.