Soldiers Delight Ultramafite in the Maryland Piedmont
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EATON, Director For sale by U.S. Geological Survey, Map Distribution Box 25286, MS 306, Federal Center Denver, CO 80225 Any use of trade, product, or firm names in this publication is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Published in the Eastern Region, Reston, Va. Manuscript approved for publication November 3, 1993. Stratigraphic Notes, 1993 ISSN 1071-7102 CONTENTS (Letters indicate the chapter) (A) The Soldiers Delight Ultramafite in the Maryland Piedmont By Avery Ala Drake, Jr. (B) Continental Margin Deposits and the Mountain Run Fault Zone of Virginia Stratigraphy and Tectonics By Louis Pavlides m Chapter A The Soldiers Delight Ultramafite in the Maryland Piedmont By Avery Ala Drake, Jr. STRATIGRAPHIC NOTES, 1993 U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 2076 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON: 1994 CONTENTS Abstract......................................................................................................................... AI Introduction .................................................................................................................. AI Regional Geology......................................................................................................... AI Soldiers Delight Ultramafite......................................................................................... A6 Geochemistry................................................................................................................ A 7 Conclusions . .. .. ... ... .. .................................. .... .. .. ... .. .. .. .. ..... A II References Cited ........................................................................................................... AI2 FIGURES AI. Highly generalized map of part of the Maryland-Virginia Piedmont showing distribution of ultramafic rocks ........ A2 A2. Generalized geologic map of part of the Maryland Piedmont..................................................................................... A4 A3. Photographs of phyllonitic foliation in the Oella and Sykesville Formations............................................................. A 7 A4. Photographs of serpentinized pyroxenite of the Soldiers Delight Ultramafite........ .............. ................. .................. ... A8 A5. Chondrite-normalized rare-earth element (REE) plots of some ultramafic rocks from the Maryland-Virginia Piedmont ...................................................................................................................................................................... A I2 A6. Graphs showing normalized plots comparing pyroxenite of the Soldiers Delight Ultramafite with other ultramafic rocks ........................................................................................................................................................... A I3 TABLE AI. Chemical analyses and CIPW norms of some ultramafic rocks from the Virginia and Maryland Piedmont ............. AIO Aii The Soldiers Delight Ultramafite in the Maryland Piedmont By Avery Ala Drake, Jr. ABSTRACT other ultramafic rocks in central Maryland and northern Virginia. The Soldiers Delight Ultramafite is a 29 km-long, tadpole-shaped thrust sheet in the central Appalachian Pied REGIONAL GEOLOGY mont of Maryland. It is a horse between the underlying Loch Raven Schist of the Loch Raven-Laurel tectonic motif The regional geology of the Maryland Piedmont in the and the Sykesville Formation of the Mather Gorge area of the Soldiers Delight Ultramafite is generalized in Sykesville tectonic motif. It was plucked from a footwall figure A2. Middle Proterozoic Baltimore Gneiss (Yb on fig. ramp somewhere to the east of its present position. A2, not to be confused with the Baltimore Complex) of the Most of the ultramafite is serpentinized pyroxenite. Laurentian craton (Rankin and others, 1989; Rankin, Drake, Geochemically, the pyroxenite is enstatolite. Much of this and Ratcliffe, 1993) forms the cores of gneiss anticlines that rock has been further metasomatically altered to soapstone constitute the largest internal basement massif in the central and talc schist. The most northeastern part of the rock body Appalachians (Drake and others, 1988). The Baltimore is serpentinized dunite that contains podaform chromite Gneiss is stratigraphically overlain by quartzite and schist bodies that were exploited in the past. The Soldiers Delight of the Setters Formation, and the Setters by the Cock also contains some metagabbro. eysville Marble. The Setters Formation and the Cock The pyroxenite of the Soldiers Delight differs geo eysville Marble constitute the Glenarm Group (0€ g on chemically from those in the Baltimore Complex of the fig. A2). The Glenarm Group was redefined by Drake Maryland Piedmont and the Piney Branch Complex of the (1985b) and Drake and others (1989) to consist of the Set northern Virginia Piedmont. It also differs from the ultrama ters Formation, Cockeysville Marble, and Loch Raven fic blocks in the Mather Gorge Formation of the northern Schist. This is incorrect as current work (A.A. Drake, Jr., Virginia-Maryland Piedmont, which are mostly serpenti unpub. data, 1991-93) shows that the Loch Raven Schist is nized harzburgite. It is unlikely that all these ultramafic thrust onto either the Cockeysville Marble, the Setters For rocks had a common source, as was previously suggested. mation, the Baltimore Gneiss, or the Laurel Formation. The thrust concept was first put forth by Jonas and Stose (1946), INTRODUCTION and reiterated by Rodgers (1970) and Fisher (1989). Rodg ers (1970), however, preferred to put the thrust fault at a Ultramafic rocks are abundant in the Maryland and higher tectonic level. Fisher's (1989) suggestion that the northern Virginia Piedmont (fig. A1). Most of these rocks Loch Raven Schist is the offshore equivalent of the Setters occur in blocks interpreted as olistoliths within rocks of the Formation is unlikely because microcline is the feldspar in Mather Gorge-Sykesville and the Loch Raven-Laurel tec the Setters, whereas plagioclase is the feldspar in the Loch tonic motifs. Other bodies are part of the Baltimore Com Raven Schist (Knopf and Jonas, 1929; Hopson, 1964). The plex. These tectonic