Gondwanan Fragments In The Southern Appalachians

Upper-plate and lower-plate asymmetric passive margin fragments are preserved within Carolinia, one of several terranes that rifted from Gondwana in the Furongian (late Cambrian) to form the Rheic Ocean. In the upper plate, 1-2 km of preserved rocks are middle Cambrian (Drumian, Ptychagnostus atavus zone) trilobite-bearing mudstones that lie above an angular unconformity and are the youngest stratified rocks in Carolinia. In the lower plate, 4-5 km of stratigraphy preserved in the Kings Mountain terrane are particularly interesting, because a 4 km thick Cambrian Series 2 clastic sedimentary section increasingly dominated by western Amazonian detritus lies above a Carolinian volcanic arc basement. Here, we describe for the first time the origin and setting of the youngest rocks in the Appalachians of wholly Gondwanan origin.