Abstract Phanerozoic reactivations of basement fault zones are documented in 5000 m of basement core recovered from beneath the updip Atlantic Coastal Plain underlying the US Department of Energy Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. These basement fault zones are adjacent to the excised Rheic Ocean suture. Meta-intrusive rocks from c. 620 and 625 Ma contain a mylonitic fabric and intrude foliated mafic metavolcanic rocks. At c. 305 Ma, granulite facies orthogneisses were thrust over amphibolite facies meta-igneous rocks in the transpressive Tinker Creek Nappe. The overturned limb of the nappe localizes the Triassic Dunbarton Basin Border Fault. The border fault acted as a conduit for fluids in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. At c. 220 ± 5 Ma, a potassium and silica metasomatic event affected the SRS basement. A propylitic event flushed reducing fluids through rocks as young as the Santonian. The remains of a Triassic sub-basin were identified in the northwesten part of the site. A Cretaceous and younger vein paragenesis overprints the previous events. More than 30 pseudotachylytes are found in the SRS basement and are preferentially localized on metasomatized Alleghanian chloritic fractures. Pseudotachylyte post-dates mineralized fractures. The Pen Branch Fault offsets the basement–Cretaceous unconformity and is present in c. 242 m of core between PBF-7-419 m and PBF-7-660.8 m. The Pen Branch Fault cross-cuts mineralized fractures and must post-date strike-normal zeolites.

Abstract The central Piedmont of South Carolina includes two terranes derived from Neoproterozoic peri-Gondwanan arcs and one that preserves the Cambrian Series 2–Series 3 Carolinian Rheic rift-drift sequence. These are the Charlotte, Silverstreet and Kings Mountain terranes. The central Piedmont shear zone juxtaposes each of these terranes against the Late Silurian Cat Square paragneiss terrane. The Kings Mountain terrane is composed of meta-epiclastic rocks with distinctive metaconglomerate horizons, manganiferous formation, meta-sandstones, and dolomitic marbles. One of the lower metaconglomerate horizons yields detrital zircons of latest Middle Cambrian age. This stratigraphy is interpreted to record the Rheic rift-drift sequence on the trailing edge of an Ediacaran-Cambrian arc terrane as it pulled away from the Amazonian craton in Middle Cambrian–Furongian time. The Charlotte terrane records magmatic activity from before 579 ± 4 until ∼535 ± 4 Ma. Mafic-ultramafic zoned intrusive complexes intruded mafic-ultramafic volcanic piles. Ultramafic dikes cut the volcanic rocks and are interpreted as feeders to stratigraphically higher levels of volcanism. These mafic to ultramafic rocks record arc rifting resulting from subduction of a spreading ridge or bathymetric high. These rocks were metamorphosed to amphibolite facies at about the time of the Cambrian–Precambrian transition. The Silverstreet terrane preserves relict medium temperature eclogites and high-pressure granulites in the lower plate (Charlotte terrane) of an arc-arc collision. Relict high-pressure assemblages record 1.4 GPa, 650–730 °C conditions. High-pressure mineralogy and textures are best preserved in the cores of boudins derived from dikes with Ti-V ratios of 20–50 (i.e., MORB). High-pressure metamorphism may have occurred in Ediacaran-Cambrian time, and must have occurred prior to the intrusion of the 414 ± 8 Ma Newberry granite. The Cat Square basin contains detrital zircons as young as 430 Ma, accepted detritus from both Laurentia and Carolinia, and so is interpreted as a successor basin. The Cat Square terrane underwent peak (upper amphibolite-granulite) metamorphic conditions at the time of the Devonian–Mississippian transition while it was at the latitude of the New York Promontory. The peri-Laurentian-Carolinian suture is either buried under the Blue Ridge Piedmont thrust sheet or was thrust up and eroded away. The central Piedmont shear zone is a younger feature, no older than Visean.

The eastern flank of the Appalachian orogen is composed of extensive Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic crustal blocks that originated in a peri-Gondwanan setting. Three of these blocks record the evolution of Neoproterozoic magmatic-arc systems, including Carolinia in the southern Appalachians and Ganderia and Avalonia in the northern Appalachians. Relationships among these three crustal blocks are important for understanding both the accretionary history of the orogen and the evolution of the Iapetus and Rheic Oceans, first-order geographic features of the Paleozoic globe. Traditionally, Carolinia and Avalonia have been considered to represent a single microcontinental magmatic arc that accreted to Laurentia in the middle to late Paleozoic. The early lithotectonic history (ca. 680–570 Ma) of the two blocks is obscure; however, their latest Neoproterozoic-Paleozoic histories are distinct. This disparity is manifest in the first-order features of (1) timing and style of magmatic-arc cessation and (2) the nature of their Paleozoic lithotectonic records. Magmatic arc activity ceased in Avalonia in the late Neoproterozoic (ca. 570 Ma), succeeded by extension-related magmatism and sedimentation that was transitional into a robust latest Neoproterozoic–Silurian platformal clastic sedimentary sequence. This platform was tectonically unperturbed until the Late Silurian–Early Devonian. In contrast, Carolinia records late Neo-proterozoic tectonothermal events coeval with arc magmatism, which extended into the Cambrian; a relatively thin Middle Cambrian shallow-marine clastic sequence is preserved unconformably atop the Carolinia arc sequences. Subsequently, Carolinia experienced widespread Late Ordovician–Silurian deformation and metamorphism. However, we note striking similarities between Carolinia and Ganderia; specifically, in Ganderia, like Carolinia, late Neoproterozoic tectonism was accompanied by arc magmatism that extended into the Cambrian. Ganderian arc rocks are capped unconformably by a Middle Cambrian to Early Ordovician clastic sequence, and they were tectonized in the Late Ordovician–Silurian, similar to relations in Carolinia. Independent studies indicate that the Late Ordovician–Silurian tectonism in both blocks was related to their accretion to Laurentia. Thus, Carolinia and Ganderia show parallel development of first-order lithotectonic characteristics for two endpoints in their global strain path, i.e., their Gondwanan source region and their accretion to Laurentia. Consequently, we posit that Carolinia appears to be more closely affiliated with Ganderia than with Avalonia. The recognition of this linkage between Appalachian peri-Gondwanan realm crustal blocks in light of paleomagnetic and isotopic data leads to a unified model for the accretion of these blocks to the eastern margin of Laurentia.

Abstract Upper-plate and lower-plate asymmetric passive margin fragments are preserved within Carolinia, one of several terranes that rifted from Gondwana in the Furongian (late Cambrian) to form the Rheic Ocean. In the upper plate, 1–2 km of preserved rocks are middle Cambrian (Drumian, Ptychagnostus atavus zone) trilobite-bearing mudstones that lie above an angular unconformity and are the youngest stratified rocks in Carolinia. In the lower plate, 4–5 km of stratigraphy preserved in the Kings Mountain terrane are particularly interesting, because a 4 km thick Cambrian Series 2 clastic sedimentary section increasingly dominated by western Amazonian detritus lies above a Carolinian volcanic arc basement. Here, we describe for the first time the origin and setting of the youngest rocks in the Appalachians of wholly Gondwanan origin.

Abstract Eight stops on a one-day field trip along the Savannah River corridor between Plum Branch, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia, review the Ediacaran–Cambrian and Pennsylvanian–Permian history of several terranes that comprise Carolinia in the eastern Piedmont. The foliation of ca. 550 Ma andesitic metatuffs of the Persimmon Fork is isoclinally folded. This event may be related to other recognized events in Carolinia at the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary or the folding of the sub–Asbill Pond angular unconformity before the intrusion of the Clouds Creek pluton. Three stops illustrate features of the Modoc zone in the eastern Piedmont. Variably mylonitized Modoc zone orthogneisses were intruded between 300 and 310 Ma. Mylonitic Modoc zone orthogneisses are parasitically folded around the northwest-vergent Kiokee antiform. Monazites from the core of the Kiokee antiform yield TIMS (thermal ionization mass spectrometry) U-Pb ages of ca. 306–308 Ma, and hornblende yields 40 Ar/ 39 Ar plateaus of ca. 288 and 296 Ma. Favorably oriented near-vertical segments of the steeply dipping to overturned limb of the Kiokee antiform are reactivated with dextral strike-slip sense and locally preserve spectacular composite planar fabric. The serpentinites at Burks Mountain include serpentinized orthopyroxene and chromite. The origin of these ultramafic rocks may have been at the base of an ophiolite or an ultramafic layered intrusion in the lower continental crust. The ca. 294 Ma Appling granite is undeformed and intrudes the trailing limb of the Kiokee antiform. The Augusta fault frames the southeastern margin of the Kiokee belt schists and gneisses. The fault is known from a single quarry exposure that places low-grade metavolcanics and epiclastic rocks in the hanging wall against footwall gneisses and schists of the Kiokee belt. The most distinctive rocks in the quarry are K-silica-metasomatized mylonites interleaved with chlorite schists. The origin of K and Group I cations is thought to be the retrogression of biotite. Furthermore this metasomatism is thought to have accompanied Triassic rifting. These metasomatic effects are heterogeneously developed in the footwall Kiokee belt gneisses, and are well known in the footwall of the Triassic border fault of the Dunbarton basin, underlying the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Savannah River Site. It is thought that no differential rotation of the eastern Piedmont in this area occurred after ca. 275 Ma. A final stop is made to observe the low-grade metavolcanic rocks of the Belair belt south of the Augusta fault.

Laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) U-Pb ages of more than 400 detrital zircons from the Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic clastic sequences of Carolinia range from ca. 530 Ma (Early Cambrian) to ca. 2600 (Archean). The majority of analyzed zircon grains are late Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran), with minor amounts of Mesoproterozoic–Paleozoic and accessory Archean grains. The overall distribution of age populations of detrital zircons is consistent with sediment derivation from the Amazonian craton and its peripheral orogenic belts on the margin of west Gondwana. On the basis of the age of the youngest detrital zircon populations (ca. 550 Ma), the Uwharrie, Tillery, Cid, and Yadkin formations are no older than Ediacaran. The minimum depositional ages of the Uwharrie and Cid formations are constrained by ages of contemporaneous volcanism (551 ± 8 and 547 ± 2 Ma, respectively). Thus, all units of the Albemarle sequence were deposited between ca. 550 and 532 Ma. The dominance of Ediacaran and early Paleozoic zircons in the Albemarle Group suggests an underlying local protosource for the sediments. Mesoproterozoic and older detrital grains constitute a minor component and have an age signature that suggests derivation from the underlying continental crust basement. Dated samples from the Albemarle Group yield similar detrital zircon U-Pb age popu lations consistent with a common provenance. The results of this study illustrate that sedimentation in the Albemarle sequence of Carolinia is a manifestation of active tectonics and occurred broadly coeval with felsic magmatism. These relationships suggest that magmatism, tectonism, and deposition were broadly coeval and important regional-scale mechanisms consistent with formation in a late Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic arc rift to backarc basin tectonic setting.

Abstract Within the Appalachian–Variscan orogen of North America and southern Europe lie a collection of terranes that were distributed along the northern margin of West Gondwana in the late Neoproterozoic and early Palaeozoic. These peri-Gondwanan terranes are characterized by voluminous late Neoproterozoic ( c . 640–570 Ma) arc magmatism and cogenetic basins, and their tectonothermal histories provide fundamental constraints on the palaeogeography of this margin and on palaeocontinental reconstructions for this important period in Earth history. Field and geochemical studies indicate that arc magmatism generally terminated diachronously with the formation of a transform margin, leading by the Early–Middle Cambrian to the development of a shallow-marine platform–passive margin characterized by Gondwanan fauna. However, important differences exist between these terranes that constrain their relative palaeogeography in the late Neoproterozoic and permit changes in the geometry of the margin from the late Neoproterozoic to the Early Cambrian to be reconstructed. On the basis of basement isotopic composition, the terranes can be subdivided into: (1) Avalonian-type (e.g. West Avalonia, East Avalonia, Meguma, Carolinia, Moravia–Silesia), which developed on juvenile, c . 1.3–1.0 Ga crust originating within the Panthalassa-like Mirovoi Ocean surrounding Rodinia, and which were accreted to the northern Gondwanan margin by c . 650 Ma; (2) Cadomian-type (e.g. North Armorican Massif, Ossa–Morena, Saxo-Thuringia, Moldanubia), which formed along the West African margin by recycling ancient ( c . 2.0–2.2 Ga) West African crust; (3) Ganderian-type (e.g. Ganderia, Florida, the Maya terrane and possible the NW Iberian domain and South Armorican Massif), which formed along the Amazonian margin of Gondwana by recycling Avalonian and older Amazonian basement; and (4) cratonic terranes (e.g. Oaxaquia and the Chortis block), which represent displaced Amazonian portions of cratonic Gondwana. These contrasts imply the existence of fundamental sutures between these terranes prior to c . 650 Ma. Derivation of the Cadomian-type terranes from the West African craton is further supported by detrital zircon data from their Neoproterozoic–Ediacaran clastic rocks, which contrast with such data from the Avalonian- and Ganderian-type terranes that suggest derivation from the Amazonian craton. Differences in Neoproterozoic and Ediacaran palaeogeography are also matched in some terranes by contrasts in Cambrian faunal and sedimentary provenance data. Platformal assemblages in certain Avalonian-type terranes (e.g. West Avalonia and East Avalonia) have cool-water, high-latitude fauna and detrital zircon signatures consistent with proximity to the Amazonian craton. Conversely, platformal assemblages in certain Cadomian-type terranes (e.g. North Armorican Massif, Ossa–Morena) show a transition from tropical to temperate waters and detrital zircon signatures that suggest continuing proximity to the West African craton. Other terranes (e.g. NW Iberian domain, Meguma) show Avalonian-type basement and/or detrital zircon signatures in the Neoproterozoic, but develop Cadomian-type signatures in the Cambrian. This change suggests tectonic slivering and lateral transport of terranes along the northern margin of West Gondwana consistent with the transform termination of arc magmatism. In the early Palaeozoic, several peri-Gondwanan terranes (e.g. Avalonia, Carolinia, Ganderia, Meguma) separated from West Gondwana, either separately or together, and had accreted to Laurentia by the Silurian–Devonian. Others (e.g. Cadomian-type terranes, Florida, Maya terrane, Oaxaquia, Chortis block) remained attached to Gondwana and were transferred to Laurussia only with the closure of the Rheic Ocean in the late Palaeozoic.

Abstract The Neoproterozoic tectonomagmatic evolution of West Avalonia comprises four major events. Tectonism started with the formation of a Tonian passive margin on a Baltica-derived ribbon dispersed into the Mirovoi Ocean. Obduction of an oceanic terrane onto the ribbon produced olistostromes, deformation and metamorphism before 750 Ma. Obduction was followed by a Tonian (750–730 Ma) arc on the created composite crust. A pause in magmatism between 730 and 700 Ma is the next event. Subsequently, a Cyrogenian (700–670 Ma) arc was formed, which may have collided with Baltica or another buoyant element nearby. Thereafter, a long-lasting (640–565 Ma) continental arc was erected which, combined with the late Ediacaran–Early Paleozoic sedimentary cover, represents the hallmark of West Avalonia. A Caribbean-style incursion of the Ediacaran arc into the widening Tornquist gap between Amazonia and Baltica led to a diachronous collision with the Ganderian arc. Strike-slip slivering produced a complex transfer of terranes to both: Carolinia and smaller terranes to Ganderia, and East Avalonia to West Avalonia. The Rheic Ocean opened diachronously at c. 500 Ma, following a plate reorganization and re-establishment of an oblique subduction zone beneath Amazonia. As a result, Avalonia and Ganderia became progressively separated and dispersed into the Iapetus Ocean.

Review of the major post–Middle Ordovician lithotectonic elements of the Appalachian orogen indicates that the middle to late Paleozoic geologic evolution of the Appalachian margin was less uniform than that of the early Paleozoic. Evolutionary divergence between the northern and southern segments of the orogen started in the Late Ordovician to Silurian with staggered accretion of the first peri-Gondwanan elements to reach the Laurentia margin, Carolinia in the south and Ganderia in the north. Divergence was amplified during the Silurian, specifically with respect to the nature of the Laurentian margin and the history of accretion. During this time frame, the northern margin was convergent, whereas the amagmatic southern margin may well have been a transform boundary. In terms of accretion, the Late Silurian–Early Devonian docking of Avalonia was restricted to the northern segment, whereas the southern Appalachians appear to have been largely quiescent during this interval. The evolutionary paths of the two segments of the margin converge on a common history in the Late Devonian during the Famennian event; we suggest that this tectonism was related to the initial marginwide interaction of Laurentia with the peri-Gondwanan blocks of Meguma and Suwanee, providing a uniform tectonic template for margin evolution. The Laurentian-Gondwanan collision is marked by second-order divergences in history. Specifically, during the Carboniferous, the southern segment records a larger component of shortening than the northern Appalachians.

Abstract The pre-Jurassic rocks of Corridor E-3 as shown in the Main Display, West Sheet, reveal the tectonic history of the middle Atlantic margin of the North American continent during the interval Late Proterozoic through Tertiary. The history is graphically shown on the main display and is also summarized in the conclusions of this paper. This corridor differs from other eastern margin corridors in four important respects; 1) there is a large uplift of IGa Grenville basement in the eastern Piedmont at this latitude. 2) Only one suture (early Taconic, Cambrian - Late Ordivician) is recognized in the exposed Appalachians, and that separates the Carolina (Avalon) magmatic terrane from the Laurentian passive margin. 3) The Chopawamsic/ James Run volcanic belt is recognized as a part of Carolinia/Avalonia, and is not a different island arc. 4) The eastern margin of Laurentia (and its upper bounding surface, the early Taconic suture) extends in the subsurface below the coastal plain at least 50 kilometers east of Richmond in one model, or may reach the continental edge in another. Bird and Dewey (1970) produced the first comprehensive modern tectonic model that included the central and southern Appalachians. It was essentially an extrapolation of northern Appalachian and Newfoundland data into the southeast. However, a model based primarily on northern Appalachian geology didn't seem to fit the central and southern Appalachians and, in 1972 Robert D. Hatcher, Jr., attempted the first comprehensive tectonic model for the southern Appalachians. His model proposed that the eastern Piedmont volcanics, (Charlotte,