West Point Melange, remnants of a Lower Paleozoic ophiolitic, eclogite-bearing melange in the Southern Appalachians, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina
The lower Paleozoic West Point melange in the West Point thrust sheet is locally preserved beneath and commonly folded with ocean-floor Ropes Creek Metabasalt of the Ropes Creek thrust sheet in the crystalline terrane of Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina. The melange overlies a calc-alkaline island arc assemblage known as the Paulding volcanic-plutonic complex in the Paulding thrust sheet. The matrix of the melange is generally highly sheared talc-actinolite schist and (or) highly deformed amphibolite, and less commonly sheared scaly pelitic schist. Most clasts in the melange are of a wide variety of mafic and ultramafic rocks, including dunite, coronite troctolite, olivine gabbro, wehrlite, cortlandite, pyroxenite, and olivine-pyroxenite. Eclogite clasts are found at several localities in northern Georgia, southern North Carolina, and in Alabama. The mostly mafic ophiolitic nature of the West Point melange, the clasts of eclogite, and its location between an island-arc assemblage and ocean-ridge basalts suggests that it is the remnants of a subduction melange formed between the mid-Iapetus ridge and the oceanic Paulding island arc. The melange also forms part of the Hillabee Greenstone in Alabama and the Lake Chatuge sill and Shooting Creek complex in northern Georgia and southern North Carolina.
- Research Organization:
- McCrone Environmental Services, Inc., Norcross, GA (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6876045
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-8510489-
- Journal Information:
- Geol. Soc. Am., Abstr. Programs; (United States), Vol. 17; Conference: 98. annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Orlando, FL, USA, 28 Oct 1985
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Basal thrust contact of the accreted Carolina Slate belt volcanic arc, southern Appalachian piedmont
Macon melange, an ancient subduction melange complex in the southern Appalachians, AL-NC
Related Subjects
ALABAMA
IGNEOUS ROCKS
PLATE TECTONICS
SCHISTS
GEORGIA
PETROGENESIS
PETROLOGY
NORTH CAROLINA
AMPHIBOLITES
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS
GEOLOGIC FAULTS
GEOLOGIC FORMATIONS
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
METAMORPHISM
PALEOZOIC ERA
SUBDUCTION ZONES
FEDERAL REGION IV
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOLOGY
METAMORPHIC ROCKS
MOUNTAINS
NORTH AMERICA
ROCKS
TECTONICS
USA
580201* - Geophysics- Seismology & Tectonics- (1980-1989)
580300 - Mineralogy
Petrology
& Rock Mechanics- (-1989)