Abstract The allochthonous Talladega belt of eastern-northeastern Alabama and northwestern Georgia is a northeast striking, fault bounded block of lower greenschist facies metasedimentary and metaigneous rocks that formed along the margin of Laurentia at or outboard of the seaward edge of the Alabama promontory. Bounded by metamorphic rocks of the higher grade Neoproterozoic(?) to Carboniferous eastern Blue Ridge on the southeast and unmetamorphosed to anchimetamorphic Paleozoic rocks of the Appalachian foreland on the northwest, the Talladega belt includes shelf facies rocks of the latest Neoproterozoic/earliest Cambrian Kahatchee Mountain Group, Cambrian-Ordovician Sylacauga Marble Group, and the latest Silurian(?) to uppermost Devonian/earliest Mississippian Talladega Group. Along the southeastern flank of these metasedimentary sequences, a Middle Ordovician back-arc terrane (Hillabee Greenstone) was tectonically emplaced along a cryptic pre-metamorphic thrust fault (Hillabee thrust) and subsequently dismembered with units of the upper Talladega Group along the post-metamorphic Hollins Line fault system. Importantly, strata within the Talladega belt are critical for understanding the tectonic evolution of the southern Appalachian orogen when coupled with the geologic history of adjacent terranes. Rocks of the lower Talladega Group, the Lay Dam Formation, suggest latest Silurian–earliest Devonian tectonism that is only now being recognized in other areas of the southern Appalachians. Additionally, correlation between the Middle Ordovician Hillabee Greenstone and similar bimodal metavolcanic suites in the Alabama eastern Blue Ridge and equivalent Dahlonega Gold belt of Georgia and North Carolina suggests the presence of an extensive back-arc volcanic system on the Laurentian plate just outboard of the continental margin during the Ordovician and has significant implications for models of southern Appalachian Taconic orogenesis.

Abstract Independent researchers working in the Talladega belt, Ashland-Wedowee-Emuckfaw belt, and Opelika Complex of Alabama, as well as the Dahlonega gold belt and western Inner Piedmont of Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas, have mapped stratigraphic sequences unique to each region. Although historically considered distinct terranes of disparate origin, a synthesis of data suggests that each includes lithologic units that formed in an Ordovician back-arc basin (Wedowee-Emuckfaw-Dahlonega basin—WEDB). Rocks in these terranes include varying proportions of metamorphosed mafic and bimodal volcanic rock suites interlayered with deep-water metasedimentary rock sequences. Metavolcanic rocks yield ages that are Early–Middle Ordovician (480–460 Ma) and interlayered metasedimentary units are populated with both Grenville and Early–Middle Ordovician detrital zircons. Metamafic rocks display geochemical trends ranging from mid-oceanic-ridge basalt to arc affinity, similar to modern back-arc basalts. The collective data set limits formation of the WEDB to a suprasubduction system built on and adjacent to upper Neoproterozoic–lower Paleozoic rocks of the passive Laurentian margin at the trailing edge of Iapetus, specifically in a continental margin back-arc setting. Overwhelmingly, the geologic history of the southern Appalachians, including rocks of the WEDB described here, indicates that the Ordovician Taconic orogeny in the southern Appalachians developed in an accretionary orogenic setting instead of the traditional collisional orogenic setting attributed to subduction of the Laurentian margin beneath an exotic or peri-Laurentian arc. Well-studied Cenozoic accretionary orogens provide excellent analogs for Taconic orogenesis, and an accretionary orogenic model for the southern Appalachian Taconic orogeny can account for aspects of Ordovician tectonics not easily explained through collisional orogenesis.