The western Blue Ridge Province of the southern Appalachians contains a rich record of the Mesoproterozoic Grenville orogeny, but subsequent Paleozoic metamorphic events have variably overprinted Grenville rocks, and Paleozoic thrusting has telescoped Grenville rock units. Effects of Paleozoic orogenesis must be unraveled to decipher the Grenville record. The Grenville rocks in the Blue Ridge of northwestern North Carolina and eastern Tennessee reside in a stack of Alleghanian thrust sheets that lie above the Grandfather Mountain and Mountain City windows. The composite Fries thrust sheet is the structurally highest unit in the stack and contains rocks of the eastern Blue Ridge juxtaposed against Grenville basement rocks (Pumpkin Patch Metamorphic Suite) along the Devonian Burnsville fault, which is the only identifiable Acadian structure in the thrust stack. West of the Grandfather Mountain window, the Sams Gap–Pigeonroost thrust splays off the Fries fault. Only the Fries and Sams Gap–Pigeonroost sheets appear to have been affected by Ordovician Taconic metamorphism. Below the Fries and Sams Gap–Pigeonroost sheets, Grenville basement rocks in the Fork Ridge and Linville Falls–Stone Mountain thrust sheets display widespread greenschist-facies metamorphism and deformation associated with Alleghanian thrusting. The lowest basement sheet is the Little Pond Mountain thrust sheet, which experienced only Late Paleozoic chlorite-grade metamorphism. Palinspastic restoration of the Grenville rocks to their pre-Paleozoic relative positions places rocks of the Pumpkin Patch Metamorphic Suite outboard of western Blue Ridge Grenvillian rocks.

Two diagrams show the results of pollen analysis in sediments from Hack and Quarles Ponds, in the southern part of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. The following pollen assemblage zones are distinguished: (1) A basal Pinus-Picea zone, with abundant conifer pollen and relatively large amounts of herb pollen. Two subzones are distinguished: a Sanguisorba-Isoetes subzone, present only at Hack Pond, where the top of the subzone has been dated at 12,720 ± 200 years, and a Quercus-Corylus subzone, with less herb and more deciduous-tree pollen. This zone is believed to represent a period of conifer woodland dominated by spruce. (2) A Quercus zone, with abundant Quercus and very little conifer pollen. Two subzones are distinguished: a lower Tsuga subzone and an upper Carya-Cephalanthus subzone. This zone is believed to represent a period when the vegetation was largely hardwood forest, commencing shortly after 9520 ± 200 years ago. (3) A Quercus-Pinus zone, with much pollen of Quercus and Pinus and substantial amounts of other deciduous-tree pollen. This zone is believed to represent a period of oak-pine forest, the pines being predominantly those species found today in the vicinity of the sites. The diagrams strongly resemble those from southeastern Virginia and North Carolina, but they differ very markedly from those of sites to the north in the area formerly covered by ice sheets of the Wisconsin glaciation. A time lapse probably occurred between similar vegetational developments in different areas. The results support the conclusions of some previous writers that substantial changes in vegetation occurred at considerable distances from the ice sheets. There is also support for suggestions that the Appalachians constituted a refuge for Picea and Pinus during at least part of Wisconsin time.