| Summary |
The Limestone Cove Window is located in the Blue Ridge Province of northeast Tennessee and northwestern North Carolina. The rocks in the window range from Precambrian basement complex of Grenville age to the Rome Formation of early Cambrian age. The Snowbird Formation, a unit of the late Precambrian Ocoee Group, is recognized north of the Nolichucky River for the first time. Formations of the early Cambrian Chilhowee Group were mapped. These include the Unicoi, Hampton and Ervjin, which consist mostly of metaquartzite and slate, and the Shady Dolomite, the only carbonate unit exposed in the field area. The window, 17 kilometers long by 5 kilometers wide, was formed when erosion breached an anticlinal fold in a series of imbricate thrust faults. The axis of the major anticline follows the northeast-southwest regional trend; however, transverse warping is also present. The faults in this area are major overthrusts: the structurally highest fault, the Unaka Mountain Fault, forms the southeastern boundary of the Limestone Cove Window; the Limestone Cove Overthrust Fault forms the northwestern boundary; and the structurally lowest Norris Branch Fault outlines three sides of a much smaller window which lies within the southwestern tip of the Limestone Cove Window. Three transverse faults have produced a large salient in the trace of the Unaka Mountain Fault. Both folding and faulting are probably associated with the late Paleozoic Alleghenian Orogeny on the basis of regional evidence. The only direct evidence in this area indicates that the folding and faulting are post-Cambrian. |
