Structural Development, Strain History, and Timing of Deformation in the Eastern Great Smoky Mountains
Connelly JB. 1993. Structural Development, Strain History, and Timing of Deformation in the Eastern Great Smoky Mountains. University of Tennessee
ABSTRACT: The present investigation reveals that the Greenbrier and Dunn Creek thrust sheets preserve well-formed ramp-related folds within the Great Smoky Mountains area. The Greenbrier thrust sheet preserves a ramp anticline at klippes of the Greenbrier thrust sheet in the eastern Great Smoky Mountains that can be traced discontinuously to the western Great Smoky Mountains where this anticline has been modified by later displacement along the Rabbit Creek fault. A ramp-related fold is also preserved in the main Greenbrier thrust sheet. The main Greenbrier fault was subsequently folded by an underlying ramp anticline within the Dunn Creek thrust sheet. These earliest thrust systems have therefore been reconstructed based on foreland models of ramps and flats. The thrust faults form a folded imbricate fan structure with lower hanging-wall ramp anticlines folding higher thrust sheets. The foreland-style thrust system was internally deformed later in the Taconic during emplacement of a thrust sheet now floored by the Miller Cove fault. The Taconic package if imbricated Ocoee strata was emplaced onto the Valley and Ridge during the Alleghanian orogeny by the late Miller Cove and Great Smoky thrust systems. Faults in these late systems occupied various parts of the early ductile thrust zones, and almost certainly excised significant lower parts of the three early thrust sheets....
- Type
- Academic
- Authors
- Connelly, Jeffrey
- Date of Issue
- 1993-05
- Publisher
- University of Tennessee
- Units
- GRSM
- Keywords
- Alleghanian orogeny, anticline, APHN, Appalachian Highlands Network, deformation, Dissertation, geology, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbrier fault, GRSM, GRSM-00532, Miller Cove fault, SER, Southeast Region, Taconic