GEOLOGIC GUIDE TO ROCKS AND STRUCTURES ALONG THE NUTBUSH CREEK FAULT ZONE, KERR LAKE STATE RECREATION AREA, NORTH-CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA

Noted for its 800 miles of shorelines, Kerr Lake State Recreation Area (KLSRA), located in Vance and Warren Counties of north-central North Carolina at the Virginia state line, provides nearly continuous cross-strike and along-strike outcrop views of the transition between fundamental lithotectonic elements of the Late Proterozoic to Cambrian Carolina Zone island arc. The suprastructural Carolina terrane and infrastructural Raleigh terrane are two of the largest portions of this peri-Gondwanan superterrane in the central and eastern North Carolina Piedmont. They record the magmatic and volcaniclastic evolution of a composite oceanic island arc. Accreted to Laurentia during the middle Paleozoic, these terranes were also affected by the late Paleozoic Alleghanian orogeny and early Mesozoic rifting during Laurentian-Gondwanan collision and subsequent Pangean supercontinent breakup.

KLSRA public facilities that line the north-trending arm of Nutbush Creek include Satterwhite Point Park, the site of a 1994 Carolina Geological Society field trip stop. The geology at Satterwhite Point can be linked with that at Bullocksville, County Line, Kimball Point, Hibernia, and Henderson Point Parks in terms of rock types, structures and fabric, as well as with 1:24,000-scale geologic maps of the North Carolina Geological Survey in order to elucidate the geological relationships and tectonic evolution of the area. Rock types include greenschist facies mylonitic and phyllonitic metagranitoids and their undeformed equivalents in the Carolina terrane and layered granite gneiss, amphibolite gneiss and pelitic schist of the Raleigh terrane. Also evident is the superposition of late Paleozoic (Alleghanian) ductile deformation upon the terrane transition, including interplay between right-lateral motion, foliation and lineation formation, and multiple syn- to post-movement granitic plutons. Finally, the visitor can observe the overprint of late Paleozoic(?) to early Mesozoic extensional brittle fractures, faults, and mineralization, as well as Jurassic diabase magmatism on all the pre-existing rocks. Information to access KLSRA parks is posted at http://www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/kela/main.php, which are primarily located within the Middleburg, John H. Kerr Dam, and Townsville 7.5-minute Quadrangles.