Talc deposits of North Carolina

Talc deposits of lenticular shape and irregular size occur in association with the Murphy marble over a length of some 40 miles in the extreme southwestern corner of North Carolina. The marble is one of a series of sedimentary formations of Cambrian age and passes by gradations into the underlying and overlying formations. Along either side of the marble belt the rocks have been intruded by quartz-diorite dikes that are younger than the structures in the enclosing formations. Field and microscopic evidence indicate that the talc lenses were formed by hot solutions of magmatic origin. The quartz-diorite dikes seem to have been the source of the solutions that produced the mineralization.