Abstract This field guide covers a two-day east-to-west transect of the Blue Ridge and Valley and Ridge provinces of northwestern Virginia and eastern West Virginia, in the context of an integrated approach to teaching stratigraphy, structural analysis, and regional tectonics. Holistic, systems-based approaches to these topics incorporate both deductive (stratigraphic, structural, and tectonic theoretical models) and inductive (field observations and data collection) perspectives. Discussions of these pedagogic approaches are integral to this field trip. Day 1 of the field trip focuses on Mesoproterozoic granitoid basement (associated with the Grenville orogeny) and overlying Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian cover rocks (Iapetan rifting) of the greater Blue Ridge province. These units collectively form a basement-cored anticlinorium that was thrust over Paleozoic strata of the Valley and Ridge province during Alleghanian contractional tectonics. Day 2 traverses a foreland thrust belt that consists of Cambrian to Ordovician carbonates (Iapetan divergent continental margin), Middle to Upper Ordovician immature clastics (associated with the Taconic orogeny), Silurian to Lower Devonian quartz arenites and carbonates (inter-orogenic tectonic calm), and Upper Devonian to Lower Mississippian clastic rocks (associated with the Acadian orogeny). Alleghanian structural features include the Little North Mountain thrust, Cacapon Mountain anticlinorium, Broad Top synclinorium, and Wills Mountain anticlinorium. Within the road log of this field guide we include both planned and optional stops, so that readers can explore the pedagogic concepts discussed herein in more detail, if desired.

Silurian effusive basalts and volcaniclastics compose the Svatý Jan volcanic center, which is located in the northwestern limb of the Prague synform, where three major volcanic phases have been recognized: the first one of early to mid-Wenlock and the last of mid-Ludlow age. Two alkaline basalt dikes of late Wenlock to mid-Ludlow age, respectively tilted to the west and to the northeast, as observed in a 100-m-thick tuff sequence, which represents the second volcanic phase, have been extensively sampled. An anisotropy of the magnetic susceptibility (AMS) study of seventy-nine specimens taken from a 5-m-thick dike (dike1) and thirty-two specimens cored in a 3.5-m-thick dike (dike2) shows two different fabrics, carried mainly by Ti-magnetite and/or magnetite, which are considered to be related to the transtensional opening phase of the dikes. Four components of magnetization, attributed to Middle-Late Silurian (C1), Middle-Late Carboniferous (C2), Cretaceous (B), and Paleocene (D), in agreement with already-published directions for the Bohemian Massif, have been isolated. They are carried by Ti-magnetite for components C1 and C2, hematite and goethite for components B and D. The opening mode, which controlled both dikes, corresponds to a dextral transtensional regime, as deduced from the AMS K1 axis. They may have been opened during several magmatic stages related to different injections during late Wenlock to mid-Ludlow times. The first stage is dominant and controlled by the primary fabric, which is mainly oblate. With a NNW-SSE strike, perpendicular to the shortening direction, this fabric is in agreement with the direction of emplacement of the nappes during the Late Devonian. At that time the nappes emplacement that pre-dates this direction was probably associated with the sinistral closure of the Rheic Ocean, in agreement with post-Givetian folding and faulting, which deformed the synform infill and closed the Barrandian marine sedimentary cycle.