Tectonic reevaluation of the Walden Creek Group

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States)

OSTI ID:5807328

Carter, M W; Hatcher, Jr, R D ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States). Dept. of Geological Sciences

Detailed mapping has focused on the internal stratigraphy and contact relationships of the Walden Creek Group (WCG). In the western part of the study area near Reliance, TN, interbedded siltstone and sandstone of the Sandsuck Formation lies stratigraphically beneath Lower Cambrian Chilhowee Group quartzites and shales. Near Pond and Hankins Mountains, Sandsuck Formation limestones flank a major NE-plunging syncline cored by feldspathic sandstone and quartz-pebble conglomerate. The Miller Cove fault separates the Sandsuck Formation from banded grayish-green slate, carbonate, and blue quartz-pebble conglomerate of the Wilhite Formation. The gradational contact is similar to that observed farther south in the Ocoee Gorge where overturned slate and siltstone of the WCG grade into graywacke and dark slate of the Great Smoky Group (GSG), and places additional important limitations on the southern extent of the Greenbrier fault that separates the WCG and GSG to the NE in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Leucogranite boulders exposed along the contact are similar to leucogranite exposed farther east in basement massifs beneath Snowbird Group. The restricted occurrence of these boulders along part of the contact between the WCG and the GSG may indicate fault reactivation and exhumation of basement and SG-GSG cover during the latter stages of Late Proterozoic rifting of Larentia. The depositional history of the WCG in SE TN thus probably began with deep-water sedimentation in a reactivated rift basin. This was followed by a period of alternating submarine fan and off-shelf sedimentation that filled the basin, then formation of shallow-water carbonate bank conditions toward the end of the WCG depositional cycle.

• OSTI ID: 5807328
• Report Number(s): CONF-921058--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Journal Volume: 24:7
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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