CONTINUED NEW MAPPING AND COMPILATION IN THE PIEDMONT OF ALABAMA

The Piedmont of Alabama is a physiographic province that contains the southernmost exposures of the Appalachian Mountains and is comprised of rocks of the eastern Blue Ridge, Inner Piedmont, and Pine Mountain Terranes. Our continued 1:24,000 scale mapping efforts in these terranes have provided new data that will in turn lead to a more in-depth understanding of the regional geology. The production of these maps using GIS has allowed new maps and data to be “stitched” effortlessly with existing series and tears of USGS 7.5’ quadrangle geologic maps. Additional geologic data from previous publications can be incorporated and compared across large map areas easily. We present the following “stitched” quads as a single continuous in-progress map (in alphabetical order): Auburn, Beulah, Bleeker, Carrville, Loachapoka, Notasulga, Opelika East, Opelika West, Our Town, Parker’s Crossroads, Red Hill, Smith’s Station, Tallassee, and Waverly. The compiled quads provide an opportunity to observe in detail the relationships of the lithologies along the axis of the Tallassee synform at its southernmost exposure.