GEOLOGY AND FLORA ALONG THE TRAILS OF THE MOUNTAIN BRIDGE WILDERNESS AREA, NORTHWESTERN SOUTH CAROLINA

The Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area is an expanse of land that covers around 40,000 acres in northern Greenville County, SC. Twenty trails that wind through this wilderness have significant geologic features and distinctive flora. Major rock types encountered include Table Rock biotite-quartz-feldspar gneiss and Poor Mountain amphibolite and muscovite schist. Granitoid gneiss and Henderson Augen Gneiss are also present but are much less common. Major structural features encountered were exfoliation surfaces, systematic joint sets, and several generations of folded foliation. The flora consists of mixed hardwoods with a prominent understory of mountain laurel and rhododendron. There is also a great array of wildflowers along the Mountain Bridge Trails, commonly including Trillium, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Sweetshrub, Black-eyed Susan, and Indian Pink.

The purpose of this project is to document the geological features and flora along each of the trails, thereby supplementing the existing descriptions of a published trail guide, Mountain Bridge Trails: Guide Book of the Mountain Bridge Wilderness (Naturaland Trust, Wyche, C. Thomas, et al., 2009). The mapping of the trails was done by hiking each trail and using a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx to plot each point that had noteworthy geology or flora. The completion of this project will result in a trail guide that details the flora and geology of each trail, an introduction describing the geology and geologic processes of the area, as well as specific examples of flora. There will also be a glossary in the back of the guide.

This project is intended to be a resource for the public. Teachers and other educators can consult this guide if they want to incorporate local geology into the curriculum. This new trail guide is not intended to replace the existing one, but rather to provide more scientific information to hikers and educators.