The Talladega slate belt in eastern Alabama represents a crystalline thrust sheet composed of low-grade metasediments. Three major lithologic sequences comprise the Talladega slate belt: (1) the Kahatchee Mountain Group, (2) the Sylacauga Marble Group, and (3) the Talladega Group. The contact relationships between the Sylacauga Marble Group and the Talladega Group indicate that the phyllites and slates of the Talladega Group rest unconformably on marbles of the Sylacauga Marble Group. Previous workers have identified specific stratigraphic sequences within the Talladega Group both in the north-central portion of the Talladega slate belt and in the southern portion of the belt. Little work has been carried out in the south-central portion of the Talladega slate belt, a region intermediate between areas to the northeast and southwest where the regional stratigraphy has been defined. To the northwest in Cleburne and Clay Counties, Alabama, the Talladega Group has been broken down into the Heflin Phyllite, the Able Gap Formation, and the Chulafinnee Schist. To the southwest in Chilton County, Alabama, similar units have been mapped as the Lay Dam Formation, the Butting Ram Sandstone, and the Jemison Chert. These units have not been mapped through this intermediate south-central region of the Talladega slate belt because of the absence by faulting of a major sandstone unit, the Cheaha Quartzite, which has been used for regional correlation. Another prominent unit, the Jemison Chert, which outcrops to the southeast of the Cheaha Quartzite, continues across this region and was used to correlate the regional stratigraphy from the northeast with that in the southwest. Detailed mapping has shown that a small slice of paper-thin quartzites of the Jemison Chert interval has overridden the Cheaha Quartzite. The geometric relationships between these two units, the differing petrologic character of these ridge-forming lithologies, the duplication of the Jemison Chert interval, and the emplacement of this imbricate slice of Jemison, in addition to structural fabric data, suggest that this termination of the Cheaha Quartzite is fault related.

For many years, the question regarding what happens to the rocks of the Talladega belt in the vicinity of their apparent northeastern terminus near Cartersville has been the subject of controversy. This has coincided with the debate over the age and correlation of metasedimentary rocks that overlie the billion-year-old Corbin gneiss complex to the east of Cartersville. Both of these problems are interrelated, and the resolution of each is dependent on the other. Stratigraphic relationships in the polydeformed rocks exposed in the Salem Church anticlinorium east of Cartersville indicate that the rocks unconformably overlying the Corbin gneiss complex are lithostratigraphic equivalents of the lowermost Ocoee Supergroup. These lithologies can be traced southwestward to the area east of Emerson where the Talladega belt has been presumed to end. Here, it is evident from studying the small- and large-scale structural features that folding has played an important role in the structural and stratigraphic complications that occur. Our mapping suggests that although part of the Ocoee Supergroup does disappear southwest of Cartersville because of folding, other parts of the Ocoee continue on to the southwest and into the Talladega belt. In the Talladega belt of Alabama, rock units such as the Heflin Phyllite, Abel Gap Formation, and Lay Dam Formation are lithologically similar but may be much younger than parts of the lowermost Ocoee Supergroup sequence present in Georgia. Other rock units of the Talladega belt in Alabama also resemble parts of the Ocoee sequence, but they too are not directly relatable to the Ocoee. AH long-range correlations can be considered only speculative until detailed mapping in western Georgia and eastern Alabama is completed. However, there is evidence to suggest that at least part of the Talladega belt is Precambrian in age and was deposited synchronously with the Ocoee Supergroup.