GEOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF PLIOCENE AND MIOCENE OUTCROPS IN THE GEORGIA BIGHT, GRAY'S REEF NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY

Huddleston, Henry, Harding, Weems and Edwards, etc., and others have characterized the lithofacies found at Gray's Reef National Sanctuary (GRNMS), Georgia Bight, as Pliocene age rock. The present study has built on these previous descriptions of this rock, based primarily on optical petrography, and added electron dispersive spectroscopy(EDS) and wave length dispersive spectroscopy (WDS) analyses. Additionally, rock from shelf outcrops, further offshore, at the Savannah Scarp, have been included in the study with the hope of comparing Pliocene facies with that of a Miocene example. Our results indicate that earlier optical characterization of the Gray's Reef outcrops was well-done and provided an excellent basis for the present study. None of our instrumental results contradict the earlier characterization of that rock, only confirming and providing additional information as to possible age(s), depositional environments and micropaleontology, where present, of these shelf outcrops.