Detailed Geologic Mapping of the Parksville 7.5-Minute Quadrangle
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 12-2018 DETAILED GEOLOGIC MAPPING OF THE PARKSVILLE 7.5-MINUTE QUADRANGLE AND THE KINEMATICS OF EMPLACEMENT OF LARGE HORSES ALONG THE GREAT SMOKY FAULT, SOUTHEASTERN TENNESSEE Trenton Joel Walker University of Tennessee Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Recommended Citation Walker, Trenton Joel, "DETAILED GEOLOGIC MAPPING OF THE PARKSVILLE 7.5-MINUTE QUADRANGLE AND THE KINEMATICS OF EMPLACEMENT OF LARGE HORSES ALONG THE GREAT SMOKY FAULT, SOUTHEASTERN TENNESSEE. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2018. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/5375 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Trenton Joel Walker entitled "DETAILED GEOLOGIC MAPPING OF THE PARKSVILLE 7.5-MINUTE QUADRANGLE AND THE KINEMATICS OF EMPLACEMENT OF LARGE HORSES ALONG THE GREAT SMOKY FAULT, SOUTHEASTERN TENNESSEE." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Science, with a major in Geology. Robert D. Hatcher Jr., Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Micah J. Jessup, Peter J. Lemiszki Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) DETAILED GEOLOGIC MAPPING OF THE PARKSVILLE 7.5-MINUTE QUADRANGLE AND THE KINEMATICS OF EMPLACEMENT OF LARGE HORSES ALONG THE GREAT SMOKY FAULT, SOUTHEASTERN TENNESSEE A Thesis Presented for the Master of Science Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trenton Joel Walker December 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Trenton J. Walker All rights reserved. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, Emily for her infinite patience and tireless support throughout this long and sometimes painful process. She has helped me raise our two young children, Ophelia and Rowan, while working full-time as a labor and delivery nurse, and without her selfless contributions to our family I would not have reached this point. I will never be able to fully express my gratitude to her, but I’ll try nonetheless. I also want to sincerely thank my advisor, Dr. Robert D. Hatcher, Jr., for the patience, understanding, and guidance he has shown me, first as an undergraduate and now as a graduate student. His encyclopedic knowledge of the Appalachians has been an invaluable resource, and his ability to integrate the most minute details into the broader regional or global picture never ceases to amaze me. Somehow, Dr. Hatcher always had time for my questions despite being quite possibly the busiest person on Earth, and I always felt encouraged and enlightened after our talks. I would like to thank Andrew Wunderlich for his assistance with ArcGIS, Illustrator, and all things map-related, as well as his encouragement and advice. I would also like to thank the late Nancy “Da Mama” Meadows for her administrative and, more importantly, emotional support, and I thank her successor, Rebecca Christ, for taking on the daunting task of managing The Hatchery. I extend my thanks to the members of my committee, Dr. Micah Jessup and Dr. Peter Lemiszki, and to the University of Tennessee Science Alliance Center of Excellence for two years of financial support. I also want to thank the United States Geological Survey EDMAP Program (grant #G16AC00138) for providing financial support for the field component of my research. iii Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Sam and Geri. They have provided a lifetime of love and encouragement, and now, as “Nana and Papaw,” they have provided untold hours of childcare support, too. I wouldn’t be where I am today, both literally and figuratively, without them. My brother, Shane, also provided both a sympathetic ear and occasional doses of cold, hard truth, which helped me stick with it to the end. My time as a graduate student has taught me as much about the importance of family as it has about geology, and I dedicate this to all of you. iv ABSTRACT The Great Smoky fault is a major Alleghanian thrust fault in the southern Appalachians that separates the highly deformed and metamorphosed Blue Ridge to the east from the less deformed and unmetamorphosed Valley and Ridge to the west. The trace of the frontal Blue Ridge, as defined by the Great Smoky fault, displays a change in strike from ~010° to ~045° in or near the Parksville 7.5-minute quadrangle in southeastern Tennessee. This change in strike defines the southern arc of the Tennessee salient, which is a convex-to-the-foreland curve in the structural front of the southern Appalachians. Along the Great Smoky fault in the Parksville quadrangle are two large horses of Lower Cambrian Chilhowee Group rocks that could have affected the emplacement of the Great Smoky thrust sheet and caused the change in strike. Detailed geologic mapping of the Parksville quadrangle has shown that the northernmost horse is comprised of a section of Nebo Sandstone thrust over a section of Cochran Formation along a previously unmapped fault, with the intervening Nichols Shale removed. The southernmost horse is comprised of Cochran Formation and displays pervasive tectonic quartz veining. Analysis of hand samples and thin sections suggest that the horses were subjected to relatively low- temperature deformational conditions between approximately 300-400°C. Intense brittle and semi-ductile to ductile deformation occurs within the immediate vicinity of the Great Smoky fault zone but is not seen elsewhere in the horses, where primarily brittle deformation is observed. The lack of penetrative brittle and ductile deformation, the constraints on deformational temperatures, and the structural orientation of the Chilhowee Group horses suggests they were derived from the hanging wall of the Great Smoky thrust sheet. The emplacement of the horses likely did not affect the development of the southern limb of the Tennessee salient. Numerous horses occur along the Great Smoky fault, but no systematic v change in geometry is observed where horses occur. Instead, the curvature of the Tennessee salient was likely controlled primarily by the irregular shape of the crystalline indenter, which, in the southern Appalachians, was the Blue Ridge-Piedmont megathrust sheet. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 Purpose of This Study ................................................................................................................. 4 Location and Description of Study Area ..................................................................................... 5 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 8 Regional Tectonic Setting ........................................................................................................... 8 Previous Work ........................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 2: STRATIGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 17 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 17 Walden Creek Group ................................................................................................................. 20 Wilhite Formation.................................................................................................................. 21 Sandsuck Formation .............................................................................................................. 22 Chilhowee Group ...................................................................................................................... 25 Cochran Formation ................................................................................................................ 26 Nichols Shale ......................................................................................................................... 28 Nebo Sandstone ..................................................................................................................... 28 Murray Shale ......................................................................................................................... 29 Hesse Sandstone .................................................................................................................... 30 Rome Formation ........................................................................................................................ 31 Conasauga Group ...................................................................................................................... 31 vii Middle and Lower Conasauga Group .................................................................................... 32 Maynardville Limestone .......................................................................................................