Geology and petrology of the Fletcher Limestone Company Quarry, Fletcher, Henderson County, North Carolina

UNCW Author/Contributor (non-UNCW co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)

Kelley J. Kaltenbach (Creator)

Institution

The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW )

Web Site: http://library.uncw.edu/

Advisor

James Dockal

Abstract: The Fletcher marble is a fault bounded tectonic slice positioned within the Brevard fault zone of southwestern North Carolina. A Neoproterozoic to Early-Cambrian carbonate facies within the Tallulah Falls Metamorphic Suite is proposed as a protolith to the Fletcher marble. The Fletcher marble contains a mineral assemblage consisting of dolomite + calcite + quartz + white mica ± chlorite ± talc ± tremolite ± wollastonite ± graphite. The Fletcher marble is entrained within the Brevard phyllonite. Both are polydeformed and display features associated with ductile and brittle deformation. The Fletcher marble is texturally a marble protocataclasite, however, it contains an earlier protomylonite to mylonite fabric. The earliest deformation recognized within the Fletcher marble is Late-Acadian to Early-Alleghanian mylonitization. Fabric features that display west to southwest-directed dextral shear that are observed in the Brevard phyllonite are correlated to mylonite fabrics in the Fletcher marble. Microscale cataclasis overprints this mylonite fabric, and is associated with the transition from ductile to brittle faulting. Reverse faulting, dip-slip to the northwest, is considered to represent last motion of the fault during the Late-Alleghanian. The Fletcher marble achieved amphibolite facies metamorphism prior to mylonitization as indicated by the presence of tremolite within the protomylonite fabric. Retrograde greenschist facies metamorphism, associated with Alleghanian deformation, overprints the earlier amphibolite facies features.

Geology and petrology of the Fletcher Limestone Company Quarry, Fletcher, Henderson County, North Carolina
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Created on 1/1/2009
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Additional Information

Publication

Thesis

A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Masters of Science

Language: English

Date: 2009

Keywords

Geology--North Carolina--Fletcher, Petrology--North Carolina--Fletcher

Subjects

Geology -- North Carolina -- Fletcher

Petrology -- North Carolina -- Fletcher

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