Bedrock geology and mineral resources of the Knoxville 1° x 2° quadrangle, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina

Abstract

The Knoxville 1°x2° quadrangle spans the Southern Blue Ridge physiographic province at its widest point from eastern Tennessee across western North Carolina to the northwest corner of South Carolina. The quadrangle also contains small parts of the Valley and Ridge province in Tennessee and the Piedmont province in North and South Carolina. Bedrock in the Valley and Ridge consists of unmetamorphosed, folded and thrust-faulted Paleozoic miogeoclinal sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Cambrian to Mississippian. The Blue Ridge is a complex of stacked thrust sheets divided into three parts: (1) a west flank underlain by rocks of the Late Proterozoic and Early Cambrian Chilhowee Group and slightly metamorphosed Late Proterozoic Ocoee Supergroup west of the Green brier fault; (2) a central part containing crystalline basement of Middle Proterozoic age (Grenville), Ocoee Supergroup rocks east of the Greenbrier fault, and rocks of the Murphy belt; and (3) an east flank containing the Helen, Tallulah Falls, and Richard Russell thrust sheets and the amphibolitic basement complex. All of the east flank thrust sheets contain polydeformed and metamorphosed sedimentary and igneous rocks of mostly Proterozoic age. The Blue Ridge is separated by the Brevard fault zone from a large area of rocks of the Inner Piedmont to the east, which contains the Six Mile thrust sheet and the Chauga-Walhalla thrust complex. All of these rocks are also polydeformed and metamorphosed sedimentary and igneous rocks. The Inner Piedmont rocks in this area occupy both the Piedmont and part of the Blue Ridge physiographic provinces. The intensity of deformation and metamorphism increases from west to east in the Blue Ridge. The west flank is mostly chlorite grade or relatively unmetamor phosed, and the central part of the Blue Ridge is mostly staurolite, garnet, or biotite grade, although sillimanite grade rocks occur along the eastern part of the central Blue Ridge in the vicinity of the leading edge of the Hayesvil Ie fault. The east flank of the Blue Ridge and much of the Inner Piedmont are at kyanite or silli manite grade of Manuscript approved for publication February 22, 1991. Description of the Area 3 Figure 3: Knoxville 1º x 2º quadrangle showing available 7 ½-min topographic maps. and Hiawassee Rivers, all tributaries of the Tennessee River. The Piedmont and eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge are drained to the east by many tributaries of the Catawba,

Effects of watershed land use and geomorphology on stream low flows during severe drought conditions in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, Georgia and North Carolina, United States

“…Soil parameters were calculated from SSURGO soils data [ Natural Resources Conservation Service , 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008]. Bedrock geology was classified by hydraulic conductivity, following the Blue Ridge regional scheme presented by Mesko et al [1999], using digital 1:250,000 maps available for the North Carolina watersheds [ Robinson et al , 1992] and a digital 1:500,000 map available for the state of Georgia [ Georgia Geologic Survey , 1999].…”

Water Quality Signals from Rural Land Use and Exurbanization in a Mountain Landscape: What's Clear and What's Confounded?

“…Elevations range from 537 m at NEMG to 1,661 m above mean sea level at the peak of the basin divide. The entire basin lies within the Blue Ridge physiographic province and is underlain by crystalline igneous and metasedimentary rocks, metamorphosed 350‐450 mya (Robinson et al ., ; Wooten et al ., ). The rocks are well weathered, and a mantle of saprolite several meters to 30 m deep drapes the hillslopes (Hewlett, ; Hadley and Goldsmith, ; Southworth et al ., ).…”

Anthropic signatures in alluvium of the Upper Little Tennessee River valley, Southern Blue Ridge Mountains, USA

“…This activity has significantly impacted the fluvial systems in that mercury was transported with sediments, reworked by fluvial process, and stored in overbank sediments (Leigh, 1994(Leigh, , 1997Lecce et al, 2008). There were no major gold mining operations near the three study sites, but scattered prospecting occurred in the Upper Little Tennessee catchment during the early 1900s (Robinson et al, 1992). This probably is the primary reason for the significantly higher amounts of Hg in the post-settlement vertical accretions.…”

“…1). The representative bedrock of the region is quartz dioritic gneiss and biotitic gneiss (Hatcher, 1988;Daniel and Payne, 1990;Robinson et al, 1992), which has been weathered to form a 1-30 m thick mantle of saprolite. The texture of saprolite ranges from sand to clay loam, providing abundant fine sediments to the drainage network (Price and Leigh, 2006;Leigh, 2010).…”