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

南阿巴拉契亚地区构造以推测晚古生代的北西向逆冲和北东向右旋剪切为主。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，在乔治亚州和南卡罗来纳州东部的皮埃蒙特，与阿勒哈尼亚造山运动有关的第一个事件是韧性低角度正断层的一个片段。该项目将通过绘制kiokee带及其边界向西进入格鲁吉亚的区域来验证这一伸展假设，在该区域，后续变形的叠加效应不那么严重，并且kiokee带的正常断层也暴露在外。构造研究将明确剪切意义和位移方向，并利用U-Pb和40 Ar/39 Ar技术建立变形年代学。这些结果有望帮助解释一些碰撞造山带通常特征的短暂伸展构造。

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.