CONSTRAINTS ON KINEMATICS AND THE CRUSTAL ARCHITECTURE WITHIN THE CLYDE 7.5-MINUTE QUADRANGLE, WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, USA THROUGH GEOLOGIC MAPPING OF THE HAYESVILLE AND BURNSVILLE FAULTS

The southern Appalachians record a complex tectonic history associated with the assembly of Pangea following the break up of Rodinia that included three main mountain building events: the Ordovician Taconic, Silurian-Devonian Acadian, and the late Paleozoic Alleghanian orogenies. The NE-SW striking dextral Acadian Burnsville fault has been documented from north of Spruce Pine, NC to Asheville, NC and reactivates the contact between Grenville basement rocks and the Ashe Metamorphic Suite (AMS). This contact extends southwest into the 7.5-minute Clyde quadrangle near Waynesville, NC and transitions into what has been mapped as a part of the NE-SW striking NW-directed Taconic Hayesville thrust fault. The southward extension of shearing on the Burnsville fault has remained unclear. The Clyde quadrangle encompasses the intersection of this contact with what has been mapped as the Alleghanian Fries and Chattahoochee thrust faults, and the Taconic Hayesville fault. N-S striking, W-directed thrusting associated with the Fries and Chattahoochee faults has been proposed north and south of Burnsville/Hayesville faults in this quadrangle, respectively. Similar metamorphic conditions through the Taconic and Acadian orogenies and overprinting by Alleganian thrusting throughout this region makes it difficult to discriminate between deformation events and creates a level of uncertainty of the relationship between these structures. Detailed field mapping of the rocks and structures along with documentation of the kinematics and shear sense indicators along these faults was completed through the United States Geological Survey (USGS) EDMAP program to evaluate the kinematic and temporal relationship between these structures in this quadrangle. Vertical NE-SW striking mylonite, shallow NE-SW trending stretching lineations, and dextral shear sense indicators suggest that dextral shearing associated with the Burnsville fault continues into this quadrangle and locally overprints a portion of the Hayesville fault. While additional studies are in progress, this preliminary mapping shows that Acadian dextral shearing is not offset by the Alleghanian thrusts in this quadrangle, suggesting that these thrusts may predate shearing on the Burnsville fault.