Structural inheritance in Carolinia, external to the excised Rheic Suture: Savannah River Site, South Carolina, USA.

Abstract

Abstract Phanerozoic reactivations of basement fault zones are documented in 5000 m of basement core recovered from beneath the updip Atlantic Coastal Plain underlying the US Department of Energy Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. These basement fault zones are adjacent to the excised Rheic Ocean suture. Meta-intrusive rocks from c. 620 and 625 Ma contain a mylonitic fabric and intrude foliated mafic metavolcanic rocks. At c. 305 Ma, granulite facies orthogneisses were thrust over amphibolite facies meta-igneous rocks in the transpressive Tinker Creek Nappe. The overturned limb of the nappe localizes the Triassic Dunbarton Basin Border Fault. The border fault acted as a conduit for fluids in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. At c. 220 ± 5 Ma, a potassium and silica metasomatic event affected the SRS basement. A propylitic event flushed reducing fluids through rocks as young as the Santonian. The remains of a Triassic sub-basin were identified in the northwesten part of the site. A Cretaceous and younger vein paragenesis overprints the previous events. More than 30 pseudotachylytes are found in the SRS basement and are preferentially localized on metasomatized Alleghanian chloritic fractures. Pseudotachylyte post-dates mineralized fractures. The Pen Branch Fault offsets the basement–Cretaceous unconformity and is present in c. 242 m of core between PBF-7-419 m and PBF-7-660.8 m. The Pen Branch Fault cross-cuts mineralized fractures and must post-date strike-normal zeolites.