The Mars Hill Terrane (MHT) is a belt of rocks exposed in the southern Appalachian Mountains, between Roan Mountain, North Carolina and Mars Hill, North Carolina. The terrane is located at the junction between the Western Blue Ridge and the Eastern Blue Ridge Mountains.
The unique lithology.,[1][2][3] age,[4] and metamorphic history[5] of the MHT suggest an exotic terrane origin, unrelated to either the Laurentian or peri-Gondwanan terranes that make up most of the Appalachian Mountains. Whole-rock Rb-Sr dating suggests an age of 1.8 Ga for the MHT,[4] making it the oldest terrane in the southern Appalachians by 600 million years.
- ^ Merschat, C.E. (1977). "Geologic map and mineral resources summary of the Mars Hill quadrangle, North Carolina". North Carolina Geological Survey, Division of Land Resources, Scale 1:24,000.
- ^ Gulley, G.L. (1982). "The petrology of granulite facies metamorphic rocks on Roan mountain, Western Blue Ridge, NC-TN [M.S. thesis]". University of North Carolina.
- ^ Gulley, G.L. (1985). "A Proterozoic granulite-facies terrane on Roan Mountain, western Blue Ridge Belt, North Carolina-Tennessee". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 96 (11): 1428. Bibcode:1985GSAB...96.1428G. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1985)96<1428:apgtor>2.0.co;2.
- ^ a b Monrad, J.R. and, G.L. Gulley (1983). "Age and P-T conditions during metamorphism of granulite-facies gneisses, Roan Mountain, NC-TN, in Lewis, S.E., ed., Geological Investigations in the Blue Ridge of northwestern North Carolina". Carolina Geological Society Field Trip Guidebook. 4: 1–18.
- ^ Adams, M.G. and, Trupe, C.H. (1997). "Conditions and timing of metamorphism in the Blue Ridge thrust complex, northwestern North Carolina and western Tennessee, in Stewart, K.G., et al., eds., Paleozoic structure, metamorphism, and tectonics of the Blue Ridge of western North Carolina". Carolina Geological Society Field Trip and Annual Meeting: 33–47.
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