GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE AREA AROUND CANTON, GEORGIA

Detailed geologic mapping of parts of the South Canton, Canton, Ball Ground East and West, and Waleska, Georgia 7.5-min quadrangles was digitized into ESRI’s ArcGis 9 and joined together to produce a geologic map of the area around Canton, Georgia. The mapped area includes the site of a new reservoir on Hickory Log Creek. It also includes new suburbs of Canton and a new parkway. The area spans the southwesternmost end of the marble belt and structures that have been considered to be part of the “Murphy syncline.” The area is shown on the 1976 State geologic map as underlain by northeast-trending, alternating outcrop belts of units of “mica schist,” “mica schist/metasiltstone,” and “undifferentiated pelitic rocks.” Later workers have shown the area as underlain by northeast-trending units of the Great Smoky Group and of the marble belt. However, our mapping shows that “clean” quartzites and garnet-(±staurolite)-mica schists, thought to belong to the Chilhowee Group, are intercalated in the Hickory Log Creek area where they bend northwestward as a result of superimposition of fold sets. East of Canton a major fault separates Great Smoky Group rocks to the east from Chilhowee Group rocks and Keithsburg marbles and brings up coarse-grained mafic and ultramafic rocks and intermediate plutonic rocks along its course. A thrust fault along the Nantahala Formation is marked by button schists (S-C mylonites). The Allatoona allochthon is located just southeast of Canton. The southeastern border of the area is the Dahlonega fault zone, a major, dextral, strike-slip fault zone.