Zircon Geochronology of the Raleigh Terrane in the North Carolina Eastern Piedmont

Geologic map of the South Boston 30' × 60' quadrangle, Virginia and North Carolina

“…Complex zircon populations in gneisses of the Raleigh terrane continue to pose challenges for geochronology (Owens and Buchwaldt, 2009;Peach and others, 2017;Finnerty and others, 2019). Uranium-lead dating of detrital zircon populations by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) south of this map area suggests that some gneisses and schists that have been mapped as a single peri-Gondwanan Raleigh terrane may represent different structural blocks that have distinct peri-Gondwanan or Laurentian affinities (Peach and others, 2017;Peach, 2018;Finnerty and others, 2019;Blake and others, 2020;Finnerty, 2020).…”

“…Bordering this map area to the south and southeast in North Carolina, recent 1:24,000-scale geologic maps of the Littleton (Stoddard and others, 2011), Macon (Finnerty, 2020;Rice, 2021), Middleburg (Stoddard and others, 2016), and Warrenton others, 2018, 2020) 7.5′ quadrangles provide detailed coverage from the Nutbush Creek mylonite zone eastward across parts of the Raleigh terrane. Geologic maps of other nearby areas to the south and southeast are available for the Afton (Peach, 2018;Nolan, 2020;Nolan and others, 2020), Hollister (Sacks and others, 2011), Inez (Morrow, 2015;Morrow and others, 2016), and Vicksboro (Stoddard and Bechtel, 2020) 7.5′ quadrangles in North Carolina.…”