DIGITAL GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE 1:24,000 SMITH'S STATION, ALABAMA, QUADRANGLE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR TECTONIC EVOLUTION IN THE SOUTHERNMOST APPALACHIANS OF ALABAMA AND GEORGIA

A digital geologic map of the 1:24,000 Smith's Station Quadrangle, east Alabama and west Georgia, is presented. The quadrangle lies along the “fall line” where the Appalachian metamorphic rocks of the Uchee terrane are onlapped by the Gulf Coastal Plain Sediments and Quaternary Alluvium. This area lies along the rapidly developing I-85 and I-185 corridors, and therefore geologic mapping is needed for planning, development, environmental concerns, and for Source Water Protection studies as required by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Georgia EPA. Mapping is also needed to further delineate the most southern resources for crystalline aggregate stone to serve the large area of the southeastern U.S. underlain by the Coastal Plain sediments. Basic research objectives are to 1) map and characterize lithologies, 2) analyze structures and fabrics, and 3) synthesize the geologic history of the quadrangle. Research goals are to better understand 1) the lithotectonic character of the Uchee terrane, 2) how the structures and fabrics of rocks in the Uchee terrane relate to its emplacement upon the Laurentian Margin, and 3) how the Uchee terrane fits within the realm of the Gondwanan/peri-Gondwanan terranes. We report the discovery of the Standing Boy Creek anticline: a major, shallow NE-plunging counterpart to the Lake Oliver Dam synform. The computer-generated map was developed in the following fashion. First the topographic quadrangle and hand-drawn overlays of station localities, structural/fabric data, contacts and structural traces were scanned and saved as JPEG or TIFF files using an IDEAL®FSC 8010, 85 cm wide, color scanner at Auburn University. The scanned images were imported into Corel Designer 9.0® software on a standard PC. A Wacom® touchscreen monitor and pen were used to digitize geologic information onto the digital topographic base map. The digital map and its various layers were printed on an HP Designjet 5000 plotter in the Department of Geology and Geography, Auburn University, directly from Corel Designer 9.0® or another drawing software package were it was imported as a Windows® metafile (.wmf).