Nested Paleozoic "Successor" Basins in the Southern Appalachian Blue Ridge
Tull JF and Groszos MS. 1990. Nested Paleozoic "Successor" Basins in the Southern Appalachian Blue Ridge. Geology. 18(11):1046-1049
ABSTRACT: Field studies in the southern Appalachian Blue Ridge and its southwest extension, the Talladega belt, indicate that in at least three regions, polydeformed and metamorphosed turbidite-dominated sequences unconformably overlie rifted-margin continental-terrace wedge clastic rocks and overlying carbonate-platform deposits. These sequences are (1) the Talladega Group (in the Talladega belt), (2) the Walden Creek Group (along the west flank of the Blue Ridge), and (3) the Mineral Bluff Formation (within the core of the Blue Ridge). Paleontologic evidence indicates that the Talladega and Walden Creek Groups are in part as young as Silurian-Devonian. The presence of these anomalously young sequences unconformably above the trailing-margin stratigraphy in the Blue Ridge brings into question conventional ideas of the timing and nature of the tectonic evolution of the ancient continental margin.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Tull, James; Groszos, Mark
- Units
- GRSM
- Keywords
- Acadian Phase, APHN, Appalachian Highlands Network, Appalachians basins, Blue Ridge Mountains, Devonian, geology, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, GRSM, metamorphic rocks, metasedimentary rocks, Mineral Bluff Formation, Neoproterozoic, Paleozoic, Precambrian, Proterozoic, sedimentary basins, sedimentation, SER, Southeast Region, Southern Appalachians, stratigraphy, structural controls, structural geology, Taconic Orogeny, Talladega Group, tectonics, turbidite, upper Precambrian, Walden Creek Group