COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Alleghanian Tectonism in the Eastern Piedmont: A Deformed Metamorphic Core Complex and Localization of Crustal Detachment Zones in the Hinterland

阿巴拉契亚山脉南部的构造以北西向逆冲推覆和北东向右行剪切为主，推测为晚古生代。这些事件掩盖了早期的变形事件。然而，最近完成的研究表明，与佐治亚州和南卡罗来纳州东部山前的阿勒格尼亚造山有关的第一个事件是韧性低角度正断层事件。该项目将通过绘制基基带及其边界向西进入佐治亚州的地图来检验这一伸展假说，该地区随后变形的叠加影响不那么严重，且基基带周围的正常断层暴露出来。构造研究将阐明剪切意义和位移方向，并将利用U-Pb和40Ar/39Ar技术建立变形年代学。预计这一结果将有助于解释一些碰撞造山带普遍存在的伸展构造的短暂时期。

The tectonics of the southern Appalachians is dominated by northwestward vergent overthrusting and northeast trending dextral shearing of presumed late paleozoic age. These events obscure earlier deformational events. However, recently completed research suggests that the first event associated with the Alleghanian orogeny in the eastern Piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina was an episode of ductile low-angle normal faulting. This project will test this extensional hypothesis by mapping the kiokee belt and its boundaries westward into Georgia to a region where the overprinting effects of subsequent deformations are less severe and where the normal faults bounding the kiokee belt are exposed. Structural studies will clarify the shear sense and displacement directions and the deformation chronology will be established by U-Pb and 40 Ar/39 Ar techniques. The results are expected to help explain the brief periods of extensional tectonics that commonly characterize some collisional orogens.