-100

-200

-300

-400

-500

-100

-200

-300

-300

-800

-700

-600

-500

-400

CORRELATION OF MAP UNITS

(Units indicated by asterisks are shown only on cross sections)

COASTAL PLAIN PROVINCE

PIEDMONT PROVINCE

Holocene

Pleistocene NEOGENE

Upper

Columbia Group 

Chesapeake

Group 

Trent 

Supergroup 

Black Creek Group 

Middle

Lower

Qal Qhm af

Zu*

Kcl*

Kpc* Kcf

Kt

Kb

Tch

Kdc

Qsh

Qcr

Qvg

Td

Qwm Qwb

Qch

Qws

Qds

Qw

Qt

Qcc

Qalb

Middle Eocene

Upper Pliocene

Ancora

Supergroup 

Nomini

Supergroup 

Upper CRETACEOUS

LOWER PALEOZOIC 

AND NEOPROTEROZOIC

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

Unconformity

PALEOGENE

DESCRIPTION OF MAP UNITS

(In many areas, a veneer of colluvium 3 to 6 feet (ft) thick blankets hill slopes 

and obscures the underlying sediments. Most upland surfaces are mantled 

by residual soils 2 to 3 ft thick. These thin deposits are not mapped.)

Artificial fill—Various sandy, silty, and gravelly materials, mainly of local 

origin, filled and compacted for construction of roads, bridges, and 

earth-filled dams. Materials up to 30 ft thick. Age less than 300 years 

(yrs) old

CENOZOIC AND UPPER MESOZOIC DEPOSITS OF THE ATLANTIC 

COASTAL PLAIN

Alluvium (Holocene)—Fine- to coarse-grained sand containing quartz 

pebbles, commonly with quartz-pebble conglomerate at base. Color 

typically a variable combination of yellowish brown (10YR 5/2), dark 

yellowish gray (5Y 6/2), dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/6), medium 

greenish gray (5G 5/1 or 5GY 5/1), and light olive gray (5Y 6/1). 

Deposits up to 26 ft thick. Age about 10 thousand years (ka) to modern

Peat and muck (Holocene)—Organic deposits accumulating in low areas 

with persistently high water tables. Color ranges from dusky yellowish 

brown (10YR 2/2) and dark yellowish brown (10YR 3/2) to dusky brown 

(5YR 2/2) and dark brown (5YR 2/4). Deposits usually less than 6 ft 

thick. Age typically several thousand to several hundred years (Weems 

and Lemon, 1993) 

Older alluvium (late Pleistocene)—Gravel, with rounded to subrounded 

quartz clasts up to 6 cm in diameter in quartzose, medium to very 

coarse-grained sand matrix, silty. Color is typically dark grayish orange 

(10YR 6/4), dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/8) and pale olive (10Y 6/2). 

Grades upward to very fine to fine-grained, clayey, silty, micaceous sand; 

color typically yellowish gray (5Y 7/2), moderate yellowish brown (10YR

5/6), and dark yellowish brown (10YR 4/4). Deposits up to 13 ft thick. 

Age probably 20 to 10 ka based on an optically stimulated luminescence 

date obtained in similar sediments along the Roanoke River (Weems and 

Lewis, 2007)

Pinehurst Formation (late Pleistocene)— Windblown sand, very fine 

to medium-grained, clean to occasionally silty, often humic with poorly 

developed soil horizons. Colors typically range from pale orange (10YR

7/2) to dusky yellowish brown (10YR 2/2). Deposits up to 34 ft thick. 

Age mostly 80 to 10 ka but a few deposits could be considerably older 

(Markewich and Markewich, 1994)

Tabb Formation (late Pleistocene)—Sand, very fine to fine-grained, silty 

and clayey, grades downward through fine- to medium- to coarse- and 

very coarse-grained sand, containing abundant granules and small pebbles 

of quartz. Colors typically range from yellowish brown (10YR 5/2), light 

grayish orange (10YR 8/4), and dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/6) to 

grayish orange (10YR 7/4), yellowish gray (5Y 7/2), and light greenish 

gray (5G 7/1). Deposits up to 18 ft thick. Age between 130 and 90 ka 

(Weems and Lemon, 1993)

Shirley Formation (middle Pleistocene)—Sand, very fine to fine-grained, 

silty, and clayey, generally grades downward through fine- to medium- to 

coarse- and very coarse-grained sand containing abundant granules and 

pebbles of quartz up to 5 cm in diameter. Colors typically range from 

pale yellowish gray (5Y 8/2), grayish orange (10YR 7/4), dark yellowish 

orange (10YR 6/6), and pale grayish orange (10YR 8/4) grading 

downward to yellowish gray (5Y 7/2) and pale yellowish brown (10YR

6/2). Deposits up to 24 ft thick. Age ranges from about 250 to 200 ka 

(Weems and Lemon, 1993)

Chuckatuck Formation (middle Pleistocene)—Sand, very fine to finegrained, silty and clayey; generally grades downward through fine- to 

medium- to coarse- and very coarse-grained sand containing abundant 

EXPLANATION OF MAP SYMBOLS

Contact—Approximately located

Structure contour—Drawn on the base of the Coastal Plain. Contour 

interval 100 ft

Axis of Cape Fear Arch—Approximately located

FAULTS

(Dashed where inferred)

High-angle fault—U, upthrown side; D, downthrown side

Oblique-slip fault—Arrows show relative movement; U, upthrown side; 

D, downthrown side; A, away, T, on cross sections

OTHER FEATURES

U.S. Geological Survey auger hole—see Weems and others (2011)

Other basement well data—Basement elevation in feet

granules and pebbles of quartz up to 5 cm in diameter. Colors typically 

range from yellowish gray (5Y 7/2), dark yellowish gray (5Y 6/2), 

grayish orange (10YR 7/4), dusky yellow (5Y 6/4), and dark yellowish 

orange (10YR 6/6), grading downward to greenish gray (5G 6/1), light 

greenish gray (5G 7/1), moderate greenish gray (5GY 7/1), olive (10Y

5/2), or medium brownish gray (10YR 5/1). Deposits up to 28 ft thick. 

Age probably about 450 to 400 ka (Weems and Lemon, 1993) 

Charles City Formation (early Pleistocene)—Sand, very fine to finegrained, silty and clayey, stiff, generally grades downward through fineto medium- to coarse- and very coarse-grained sand containing abundant 

granules and pebbles of quartz up to 5 cm in diameter. Colors typically 

range from dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/6), dark yellowish gray (5Y

6/2), dark yellowish brown (10YR 4/6 to 10YR 4/2), moderate yellowish 

brown (10YR 5/6), moderate reddish brown (10R 4/6), pale yellowish 

gray (5Y 8/2), light olive gray (5Y 6/1), and (or) light greenish gray (5G

7/1) grading downward to grayish orange (10YR 7/4), pale olive (10Y

6/2), light olive gray (5Y 6/1), medium greenish gray (5GY 5/1), and (or) 

very light gray (N8). Deposits up to 38 ft thick. Age between 1.3 million 

years (Ma) and 730 ka; by superposition, definitely younger than Windsor 

Formation (Weems and others, 1997)

Windsor Formation (early Pleistocene)

Sand, very fine to fine-grained, silty and clayey, stiff, generally grades 

downward through fine- to medium- to coarse- and very coarse-grained 

sand, containing abundant granules and pebbles of quartz up to 5 cm in 

diameter. Colors typically range from medium yellowish brown (10YR

5/4), dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/6), dark grayish orange (10YR

6/4), dark yellowish gray (5Y 6/2), dusky yellow (5Y 6/4), and light 

yellowish gray (5Y 8/2), grading downward to moderate grayish green 

(10GY 6/2), medium greenish gray (5GY 5/1), dark greenish gray 

(5GY 4/1), olive gray (5Y 5/1), or olive (10Y 5/2). Deposits greater 

than 63 ft thick. Age between 1.3 million years (Ma) and 730 ka; by 

superposition, definitely older than Charles City Formation (Weems 

and others, 1997)

Sand, medium-grained, grades downward to fine- to medium-grained, 

well sorted, clean, locally contains plinthite nodules formed by intense 

weathering. Colors typically range from moderate grayish orange pink 

(5YR 8/2), yellowish brown (10YR 5/2), and dark yellowish orange 

(10YR 5/6) grading downward to grayish orange (10YR 7/4), dark 

yellowish brown (10YR 3/2), and dusky brown (5YR 2/1). Deposits 

up to 8 ft thick. Age between 1.3 million years (Ma) and 730 ka; by 

superposition, definitely older than Charles City Formation (Weems 

and others, 1997)

Waccamaw Formation (early Pleistocene)

Bahramsville unit (including James City Member) (early Pleistocene)—Sand, 

very fine to fine-grained, silty and clayey, stiff; generally grades downward 

through fine- to medium- to coarse- and very coarse-grained subangular 

to angular sand containing abundant granules and pebbles of quartz up to 

8 cm in diameter. Around Elizabethtown and Abbottsburg, unit typically 

includes up to 22 ft of very shelly basal sand (James City Member) in 

paleochannels. Colors typically range from reddish brown (10R 5/6), 

moderate reddish brown (10R 4/6), dark yellowish brown (10YR 4/2), 

dusky yellowish brown (10YR 2/2), pale yellowish brown (10YR 6/2), 

dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/6), and medium brownish gray (5YR 5/1) 

grading downward to olive gray (5Y 3/2), greenish gray (5GY 6/1), and 

light olive gray (5Y 7/1). Deposits up to 62 ft thick. Age between 1.7 

and 1.6 Ma (Newton and others, 1978)

Moorings unit (early Pleistocene)—Sand, fine- to medium-grained, well 

sorted, clean. Colors typically range from pale grayish orange (10YR

8/4), yellowish brown (10YR 5/2), or light yellowish gray (5Y 8/2) 

grading downward to dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/6). Deposits up

to 40 ft thick. Age between 1.7 and 1.6 Ma (Newton and others, 1978)

Varina Grove unit (early Pleistocene)—Sand, very fine to fine-grained, 

silty and clayey, stiff, generally grades downward through fine- to 

medium- to coarse- and very coarse-grained sand; subangular to angular 

sand containing abundant granules and pebbles of quartz up to 8 cm 

in diameter. Colors typically range from dark grayish orange (10YR

7/4), dark yellowish orange (10YR 6/6), dark yellowish brown (10YR

4/2), moderate orange (10YR 5/6), yellowish gray (5Y 7/2), reddish 

brown (10R 4/6), and yellowish gray (5Y 7/2), grading downward to 

pale olive gray (5Y 6/2), light olive brown (5Y 5/4), yellowish gray (5Y

7/2), dark grayish yellow (5Y 7/4), and medium brownish gray (5YR

5/1). Deposits up to 55 ft thick. Age between 1.7 and 2.4 Ma (about 

2.0 Ma?)

Chowan River Formation (early Pleistocene)—Sand, very fine to 

fine-grained, silty and clayey, stiff; grades downward to fine- to mediumgrained, silty sand, then grades to commonly coarse- and very coarsegrained sand with abundant granules and pebbles of quartz up to 5 cm 

in diameter. Colors range from reddish brown (10R 5/6), moderate 

reddish brown (10R 4/8), moderate yellowish brown (10YR 5/4), light 

brown (5YR 5/6), dark yellowish brown (10YR 4/2), dark yellowish 

orange (10YR 6/6), medium orange (10YR 5/6), and dusky yellow 

(5Y 6/4), grading downward to moderate orange pink (5YR 8/4), light 

orange pink (10R 8/4), light olive brown (10Y 5/4), dusky yellow (5Y

6/4), yellowish gray (5Y 7/2), medium olive gray (5Y 5/1), and medium 

greenish gray (5GY 5/1 and 5G 5/1). Deposits up to 44 ft thick. Age 

about 2.4 Ma (Blackwelder, 1981)

Duplin Formation (upper Pliocene)—Sand, fine- to medium-grained, 

well sorted; contains abundant mollusk shells, commonly abundant (2 to 

5 percent) dark heavy minerals. Colors typically range from moderate 

brown (5YR 4/4 to 5YR 4/6) and moderate yellowish orange (10YR

7/6), grading down to light reddish brown (10R 4/4). Deposits up to 

47 ft thick. Age about 2.8 Ma (Graybill and others, 2009)

Castle Hayne Limestone (middle Eocene)—Calcarenite, generally fine 

to medium grained but can range up to coarse-grained, quartzose, silty, 

compact to occasionally lithified. Shell fragments and echinoid spines 

typically abundant. Colors typically olive gray (5Y 4/1 to 5Y 7/1), 

dark grayish yellow green (5GY 6/2), dark greenish gray (5GY 4/1), or 

greenish gray (5GY 5/1 to 5GY 7/1). Deposits up to 79 ft thick. Age 

about 42 Ma (Gradstein and others, 2004; Weems and others, 2009)

Donoho Creek Formation (Upper Cretaceous)—Sand, dominantly fine 

to medium grained, silty, sparsely shelly; includes quartz and glauconite. 

Colors typically dark olive-gray (5Y 3/1) to dark greenish gray (5GY 3/1). 

Deposits more than 35 ft thick. Age about 69 Ma (Gohn, 1992)

Bladen Formation (Upper Cretaceous)—Sand, very fine to coarsegrained, subangular to angular, silty, calcareous and glauconitic, sparsely 

shelly; interbedded with sandstone, fine- to very coarse grained, calcitecemented. Colors range from olive gray (5Y 4/1) to dark greenish gray 

(5GY 3/1). Deposits up to 48 ft thick. Age about 72 Ma (Gohn, 1992)

Tarheel Formation (Upper Cretaceous)—Sand, very fine to coarsegrained, silty and clayey, carbonaceous, locally granular and pebbly; 

interbedded with silt, clayey, very fine grained, sandy, carbonaceous, 

pyritic. Colors typically light olive gray (5Y 6/1), olive gray (5Y 4/1), 

olive black (5Y 2/1), or greenish black (5GY 2/1). Deposits up to 265 

ft thick. Age between 84 and 80 Ma (Gohn, 1992)

Pleasant Creek Formation (Upper Cretaceous)—Shown only on cross 

section B–B'. Sand, fine- to coarse-grained, silty, clayey, interbedded 

with very fine to fine-grained, sandy, clayey, lignitic, micaceous, locally 

glauconitic silt. Color variable, ranging from light olive gray (5Y 5/2) to 

olive gray (5Y 4/1), dark greenish gray (5GY 4/1), greenish gray (5G

6/1), and medium dark gray (N4). Interfingers updip with the Cape Fear 

Formation. Deposits up to 140 ft thick. Age about 87 Ma (Self-Trail, 

Prowell, and others, 2004; Self-Trail, Wrege, and others, 2004)

Cape Fear Formation (Upper Cretaceous)—Silt, clayey; contains very 

fine to medium-grained sand; interbedded with fine- to coarse-grained, 

silty, clayey sand containing abundant root fabrics and rare wood 

fragments. Colors varied, including dark reddish brown (10R 3/4), very 

dusky red (10R 2/2), grayish red (10R 4/2), moderate yellowish brown 

(10YR 5/4), olive gray (5Y 4/1), dark greenish gray (5GY 4/1), greenish gray (5GY 6/1), and dusky yellowish green (5GY 5/2). Interfingers 

downdip with the Pleasant Creek Formation. Deposits probably up to 

240 ft thick. Age about 87 Ma (Self-Trail, Prowell, and others, 2004; 

Self-Trail, Wrege, and others, 2004)

Clubhouse Formation (Upper Cretaceous)—Shown only on cross section 

B–B'. Sand, very fine to medium, silty, calcareous and glauconitic; 

interbedded with very fine to fine-grained, sandy, clayey sparsely shelly 

silt. Color ranges from greenish black (5G 2/1) to dark greenish gray (5G

4/1), greenish gray (5GY 6/1), olive gray (5Y 4/1), and dark gray (N3). 

Deposits probably less than 100 ft thick in map area. Age about 95 Ma 

(Gohn, 1992)

LOWER PALEOZOIC AND NEOPROTEROZOIC ROCKS OF THE 

PIEDMONT PROVINCE

Metamorphic and igneous basement rocks, undifferentiated (early 

Paleozoic and Neoproterozoic)—Shown only on cross sections. 

Complex sequence of greenschist-facies to lower-amphibolite-facies 

metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks that underlie the Coastal 

Plain sediments. Thickness unknown. Age between 800 Ma and 500 

Ma (Lawrence and Hoffman, 1993)

Qal

Qhm

Qalb

Qt

Qsh

Qch

Qcc

af

Qw

Qwb

Qvg

Qcr

Td

Tch

Kdc

Kt

Kb

Kpc

Kcf

Kcl

Zu

Qwm

Qws

Qds

U

D

-800

U

D

.

-592

#

RE-2-02

A T

Kt

Kcf

Zu

Kt

Kcf

Zu

Qal

Qal Qal Qal Qal Qal Qal Qhm Qds

Qal Qal Qal

Kdc

Qcc

Kb Tch Kb

Qcc Qw

Kb Tch

Td Qwb Qwb Qwb Qwb Qwb Qds Qwb Qw Qvg Qvg Buckhull Creek SEABOARD COASTLINE RAILROAD

Rose Hill

FOUNTAINS CREEK FAULT

Millers Creek

Beaverdam Branch

SEA LEVEL

-200

200

-400

400

FEET

-600

SEA LEVEL

-200

200

-400

400

FEET

-600

C C'

VERTICAL EXAGGERATION X 20

A T

Qal Qal Qal

Qhm Qhm Qhm Qal Qhm

Qal

Qal Qal Qal Qal Qhm Qal Qal Qal Qal Qal Qch

Kb Qw

Qcc Qch Qw Qsh Qch Qw Qch

Qds

Qsh Qsh Qsh Qch Qds

Kb

Qds Qsh

Kb

Qwb Qwb Qwb Qwm Qwm Qwb Qwm Qds Qwb Qw Qwb Qwb

Qwb Qvg

Td

Kt

Kt

Kcf

Kt

Zu Zu Zu

Kpc Kpc

Kcf

Kb

Kpc

Kcl

Qt

Qcc

US Route 701

FOUNTAINS CREEK FAULT

BIG SWAMP

CAPE FEAR RIVER FAULT

Upton Creek

Cape Fear River

Black River

Lumberton

SEABOARD COAST RAILROAD

Moores Creek

Atkinson

Long Creek

US Route 421

SEA LEVEL

-200

200

-400

-600

-800

400

FEET

SEA LEVEL

-200

200

-400

-600

-800

400

FEET

B B'

VERTICAL EXAGGERATION X 20

Qal Qal Qal Qal Qal

Qal Qal

Qal Qal

Qal

Qds Qhm Qhm Qds Qal Qds Qds Qds Qds Qds Qds

Qds

Qalb Qal

Qds Qds

Qds Qds Qwb Qwb Qw Qwb Qds Qds

Qal Qw Qw Qcc Qwb Qwm Qwb Qwb Qwm Qwb Qwb Qwm Qw

Kt

Kcf

Zu

Kt

Kcf

Zu

Kt

Kcf

Zu

Kt

Kcf

Zu

Qvg

Qvg

US Route 701

Richardson

Singletary Millpond

Cape Fear River

TURNBULL CREEK FAULT

SOUTH RIVER FAULT

CLINTON FAULT

Coharie Creek

McDainels

SEA LEVEL

-200

200

-400

-600

400

FEET

SEA LEVEL

-200

200

-400

-600

400

FEET

A A'

VERTICAL EXAGGERATION X 20

USGS COREHOLE BL-244-2003

1 0 1 2 43 5 6 7 8 9 10 KILOMETERS

SCALE 1:100 000

1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 MILES

CONTOUR INTERVAL 5 METERS

NATIONAL GEODETIC VERTICAL DATUM OF 1929

MAGNETIC NORTH

APPROXIMATE MEAN

DECLINATION, 2009 TRUE NORTH

9 / ° 1 2

MAP LOCATION

NORTH

CAROLINA

Geology mapped by Robert E. Weems and William C. Lewis (2004-2008)

GIS database by Robert E. Weems with E.A. Crider (2009)

Cartography by E.A. Crider (2009)

Manuscript approved for publication May 10, 2011

Base from U.S. Geological Survey, 1982

1927 North American datum

25,000-foot grid ticks based on North Carolina coordinate system

10,000-meter Universal Transverse Mercator grid ticks, zone 17N

B'

B

A

A'

C

C'

FOUNTAINS

CREEK

FAULT

TURNBULL CREEK FAULT

SOUTH RIVER

FAULT

CLINTON FAULT 

CAPE

 FEAR FAULT

U

D

UD

U

D

U

D

U

D

D

U

D

U

D

U

D U

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

-48

-98

-106

-110

-114

-127

-134

-136

-141

-206

-211

-258

-279

-289

-303

-313

-366

-371

-372

-373

-385

-388

-410

-415

-432

-463

-470

-480

-544

AXIS

OF

CAPE FEAR

ARCH

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

##

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

# #

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

# #

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

AT-1-04

AT-2-04

AT-3-04

AT-4-04

AT-5-04 CO-3-04

CO-1-04

CO-4-04

CO-2-04

CO-5-05

WW-1-04

WW-2-04

WW-3-04

WW-4-04

WW-5-04

HA-1-04

HA-2-04

HA-3-04

HA-4-04

HA-5-04 HA-6-04

HA-7-04

HA-8-04

DE-1-04

DE-2-04

DE-3-04

DE-4-04

DE-5-04

RH-1-04

RH-2-04

RH-3-04

RH-4-04

RH-5-05

RH-6-04

RH-7-04

RH-8-04

RH-9-04

RH-10-04

RH-11-04

RH-12-04

RH-13-04

RH-14-04

RH-15-04

RH-16-04

RH-17-04

RH-18-04

RH-19-08

RH-20-08

RH-21-08

WS-1-04

WS-2-04

WS-3-04

WS-4-04

WS-5-04

WS-6-04

WS-7-04

WS-8-04

WS-9-04

WS-10-05

WS-11-05

WS-12-08

WS-13-08

TU-1-04

TU-2-04

TU-3-04

TU-4-04

TU-5-04

TU-6-08

TU-7-08

HM-1-07

HM-2-07

HM-3-07

HM-4-07

ES-1-07

ES-3-07

ES-2-07

ES-4-08

AB-1-07

AB-2-07

AB-3-07

AB-4-07

AB-5-07

DN-4-07

DN-1-07

DN-2-07

DN-3-07

JE-1-07 JE-2-07

JE-3-07

JE-4-07

JE-5-07

JE-6-07

AU-1-05

AU-2-05

AU-3-05

AU-4-05

AU-5-05

AU-6-05

CC-1-07

CC-2-07

CC-3-07

CC-4-07

CC-5-07

DT-1-07

DT-2-07

DT-3-07

DT-4-07

TH-1-06

TH-2-06

TH-3-06

TH-4-09

TH-5-09

TH-6-06

TH-7-06

TH-8-06

BB-1-06

BB-2-06

BB-3-06

BB-4-06

SL-1-06

SL-2-06

SL-3-06

SL-4-06

SL-5-06

SL-6-06

SL-7-06

SL-8-06

SL-9-06

NL-1-06

NL-2-06

NL-3-06

NL-4-06

SP-1-06

SP-2-07

SP-3-07

SP-4-07

SP-5-07

CS-1-05

CS-2-05

CS-3-05

CS-4-05

CS-5-05

CS-6-08 CS-7-08

CS-8-08

CS-9-08

IG-1-05

IG-2-05

IG-3-05

IG-4-05

IG-5-08

TO-1-08

TO-2-08

TO-3-08

TO-4-08

TO-5-08

RO-1-08

RO-2-08

RO-3-08

RO-4-08

RO-5-08

RO-6-08

SI-1-07

SI-2-07

SI-3-07

SI-4-07

SI-5-07

SI-6-07

WL-1-07

WL-2-07

WL-3-07

WL-4-07

GA-1-05

GA-2-05

GA-3-05

GA-4-05

GA-5-05

BO-1-05

BO-2-05

BO-3-05

BO-4-05

BO-5-08

RB-1-05

RB-2-05

RB-3-05

B-4-05

RB-5-05

RB-6-08

RB-7-08

AM-1-05

AM-2-05

AM-3-05

AM-4-05

EN-1-07

EN-2-07

EN-3-07

EN-4-07

EN-5-07

Qhm

Qwm

Qwm

Qds

Qal

Qsh

Qwm Qw

Qwm Qwb

Qwm

Qch

Qch

Qal

Qds

Qsh Qhm

Qwm

Qwm

Qsh

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qch

Qal

Qhm

Qhm

Qhm

Qw

Qch

Qsh

Qsh

Qch

Kb

Qwb

Qch

Qch

Qds

Qds

Qch

Qalb

Qsh

Kb

Kb

Qsh Qch

Qwm

Qch

Qw

Qhm

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kb

Kb

Qwb

Qsh

Qhm

Qwm

Qsh

Qhm

Qwb

Qw Qsh

Qwb

Qds

Qds

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qw

Qhm

Qsh

Qch

Qch

Qds

Qwm

Qwm

Qal

Qds

Qch

Qch

Qsh

Qds

Qds Qds

Qch

Qhm

Qch

Qwb

Qch

Qch

Kt

Qwb

Qwb

Qds

Qwm

Qch

Qds

Qsh

Qcc

Qcc Qw

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qw

Qvg

af

Td

Qcc

Qhm

Qal

Qwm Qhm

Qalb

Qch

Qch

Qhm

Qsh

Qsh

Qsh

Qhm

Qch

Qal

Qds

Qhm Qw

Qwb

Kt

Qcc

Qw

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc Qch

Qds

Qch

Kt

Qcc

Qcc

Kb

Qcc

Qch

Qcc

Qhm

Qhm

Qds

Qds

Qw

Kt

Qwb

Qcc

Qw

Qw

Qwb

Qds

Kt

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qds

Qds

Qwb

Qvg

Qhm

Qhm

Kt

Qwb

Kt

Kb

Qcc

Qds

Qcc

Qvg

af

Qw

Qcc

Qhm

Qw

Qds

Kb

Qds Qw

Kt

Kt

Kt

Qds

Qw

Qws

Td

Qhm

Qw

Qw

Qch

Qw

Qw

Qds

Qws

Qcc

Qvg Kt

Qcc

Qds

Qhm

Qw

Qw

Qw

Qhm

Qhm

Qch

Kt

Kt

Kt

Qds

Qds

Qds

Qw

Qws

Qws

Qhm

Qds

Qwb

Qwb

Kt

Kt

Kt

Qvg

Qw

Qw

Qcr

Qcr

Kt

Qal

Qw

Qw

Qw

Qw

Qw

Qw

Qhm

Qhm

Qds

Qwb

Qwb

Qds

Qvg

Qds

Qwb

Qwm

Qal

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qds

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qvg

Qds

Qvg Qds

af

af

af

Qwb

Qwb

Qvg

Qvg Qcr

Kt

Kb

Kt

Kt

Qvg

Qcr

Qsh

Qsh

Qal

Qvg

Qvg

Qvg

Qvg

Qwb

Qhm

Qw

Qal

Qal

af

Qds

Tch

Qds

Qwb

Qw

Kb

Kt

Qw Kt

Kt

Qalb

Qw

Qw

Qw

Qw

Qch

Qw

Qw

Kt

Qds Qw

Qalb

Qw

Kt

Qsh

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qds

Qvg

Qvg

Qvg

Qvg

Qvg

Qvg

Qds

Qds

Qw

Qds

Kt

Qcr

Qcr

Qwb

Qds

Qwb

Qwb

Qw

Qw

Qw

Kt

Kt

Qwb

Qds

Qcc

Qcc

Qds

Qw

Qwb

Qch

Qds

Qwb

Qds

Qvg

Qvg

Qds

Qal

Qw

Qds

Qalb

Qvg

Qvg

Qwb

Qsh

Qds

Qalb

Qwb Qds

Qwb

Kcf

Qalb

Qvg

Kt

Qds

Qvg

Qvg

Qvg

Qcr

Qwb

Kt

Kt

Kcf Kcf

Kt

Kt

Qalb

Qds

Qds

Qwb

Qcr

Tch

Qwb

Qcr

Kt

Qalb

Qalb

Qw Qwb

Qwb

Qds

Kt

Qds

Kt

Qwb

Qal

Qal

Qt

Qt

Qt

Qt

Qt

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qwb

Qal

Kdc

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kt

Kb

Kt

Kb

Td

Td

Kt

af

Tch

Td

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qcc

Qw

Qw

Qcc

Qal

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR OPEN FILE REPORT 2011–1121

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

DISCUSSION

GEOLOGIC UNITS

 The Elizabethtown 30' × 60' quadrangle is located in southeastern North Carolina between Fayetteville and Wilmington. Most of the 

area is flat to gently rolling, although steep slopes occur locally along 

some of the larger streams. Total relief in the area is slightly over 210 

feet (ft), with elevations ranging from slightly less than 10 ft above sea 

level along the Black River (east of Rowan in the southeastern corner of 

the map) to slightly over 220 ft in the northwestern corner northeast of 

Hope Mills. The principal streams in the area are the Cape Fear, Black, 

South, and Lumber Rivers, which on average flow from northwest to 

southeast across the map area. The principal north-south roads are 

Interstate Route 95, Interstate Route 40, U.S. Route 117, U.S. Route 

301, U.S. Route 421, and U.S. Route 701, and the principal east-west 

roads are N.C. State Route 241 and N.C. State Route 41. This part of 

North Carolina is primarily rural and agricultural. The largest communities in and adjacent to the area are Elizabethtown, Hope Mills, Clinton, Warsaw, and Lumberton. The map lies entirely within the Atlantic 

Coastal Plain physiographic province. Outstanding features of this area 

are the large number of sand-rimmed Carolina bays, five of which 

contain enough water to constitute natural lakes: Bay Tree Lake, Salter 

Lake, Little Singletary Lake, Singletary Lake, and White Lake. These 

are associated with widespread windblown sand deposits on which are 

grown abundant crops of blueberries. The extent and distribution of 

these deposits have been estimated based on a combination of augerhole, outcrop, and light-detection and ranging (LIDAR) data.

 The geology of the Elizabethtown 30' × 60' quadrangle was 

originally mapped on 32 7.5-minute quadrangles at 1:24,000 scale 

and then compiled on this 1:100,000-scale base. The base-map topographic contours on this compilation are shown in meters; the cross 

sections, structure contours, and well and corehole basement elevations 

have been carried over unconverted from the 1:24,000-scale maps and 

are shown in feet.

 A corehole south of Elizabethtown in the south-central map 

area (BL244/BL–C–1–2003, described in Self-Trail, Wrege, and 

others, 2004) penetrated entirely through the Coastal Plain section and 

bottomed in highly fractured, probably cataclastic metamorphic rocks. 

These rocks are probably part of a major fault zone (the Fountains 

Creek fault) that crosses the area from north to southwest and produces 

subtle stream gradient anomalies across the area (Weems and others, 

2011). Throughout the map region, igneous and metamorphic rocks 

similar to those exposed to the northwest in the Piedmont province 

underlie Coastal Plain strata at depth. This varied suite of greenschistto amphibolite-grade metasedimentary and metaigneous rocks has 

been encountered at the bottom of deep wells throughout the map 

region (Lawrence and Hoffman, 1993). These folded, faulted, and 

metamorphosed rocks of Neoproterozoic and possibly Early Cambrian 

age are overlain with profound unconformity by Coastal Plain strata 

that are generally unlithified and tilt only gently toward the east. Upper 

Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Neogene strata are present. Structure 

contours shown on the map give the best available estimate of the location of the base of the Coastal Plain throughout this region. These 

structure contours are based on data compiled in Weems and others 

(2011). The Coastal Plain sediments thin westward toward the eastern 

Piedmont, and some of the Upper Cretaceous strata completely pinch 

out in that direction The Coastal Plain sedimentary deposits described 

here are mostly allostratigraphic units, bounded above and below by 

mappable unconformities (North American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature, 2005). Some of the units can be recognized in 

the map area by their lithologies (for example, the Cape Fear Formation and the Castle Hayne Limestone), but regionally most of these 

units are defined primarily by their common stratigraphic location 

between recognizable regional unconformities. 

 A number of Upper Cretaceous units are present near the 

surface and (or) crop out locally along river bluffs or in pits within the 

map area. All of these units belong to the Ancora Supergroup of 

Weems and others (2004). The Clubhouse Formation (Gohn, 1992) is 

the oldest Coastal Plain unit known from southern North Carolina. The 

unit was not encountered in core holes in the map area, but updip 

extrapolation from a core hole to the southeast at Kure Beach, N.C. 

(Harris and Self-Trail, 2006), suggests that this unit probably extends in 

the deep subsurface into the southeastern portion of the map region 

(see cross section B–B'). The upper Coniacian to lower Santonian 

Pleasant Creek Formation, however, is known from the Elizabethtown 

corehole (Self-Trail, Prowell, and Christopher, 2004; Self-Trail, Wrege, 

and others, 2004) and probably is widespread in the deeper eastern 

subsurface portion of the map area (see cross section B–B'). The Pleasant Creek unconformably overlies the Clubhouse Formation in the 

southeastern part of the map area and elsewhere unconformably overlies basement rocks. The updip onshore equivalent of the Pleasant 

Creek to the west is the fluvial Cape Fear Formation (Stephenson, 

1907; Sohl, 1976), which is exposed locally in the far northwestern 

part of the map area in the vicinity of Hope Mills along the Cape Fear 

River and Rockfish Creek (its type area). Unconformably above this 

sequence is the Tar Heel Formation, which is named for bluffs within 

the map area along the Cape Fear River that are located northeast of 

the town of Tar Heel (Sohl and Owens, 1991). The interbedded sands 

and clays of the Tar Heel Formation formed in marginal marine deltaic 

environments and contain abundant woody material, local diverse 

marine vertebrate faunas, and occasional remains of terrestrial vertebrates, including dinosaurs (H.W. Miller, 1966, 1967, 1968; Baird and 

Horner, 1979; Robb, 1989; Self-Trail, Wrege, and others, 2004). 

Glauconitic sands within the Tar Heel in the vicinity of Lumberton attest 

to a marked westward expansion of the Coastal Plain marine depositional environment between Santonian and Campanian time. The 

marginal-marine Tar Heel Formation grades to the east into fully 

marine deposits, and several formations have been described from this 

interval to the south in South Carolina. These units are the Shepherd 

Grove, Caddin, Caneacre, and Coachman Formations (Gohn, 1992). 

They are separated by unconformities, and these depositional breaks 

may well be present within the map area. If so, however, they could not 

be consistently recognized in auger holes without paleontological 

control, so subdivision of the Tar Heel has not been attempted here. 

 The upper Campanian Bladen Formation (Sohl and Owens, 

1991) overlies the Tar Heel Formation and is widespread across the 

eastern and southeastern parts of the map area. This unit, which is 

best exposed in the Elizabethtown quadrangle at Walkers Bluff (Farrell 

and others, 2001), documents another strong westward shift in the 

Coastal Plain marine depositional environment beyond that represented by the Tar Heel. All Bladen deposits preserved in this map area 

represent shallow to mid-shelf marine environments, and their landward equivalents have been long since eroded away. The overlying 

marine upper Campanian Donoho Creek Formation (Sohl and Owens, 

1991) is found only in the far eastern part of the map area. Although 

very similar lithologically to the Bladen Formation, the Donoho Creek 

is consistently somewhat darker and almost always dark olive gray (5Y 

3/1). The pattern of distribution strongly suggests an interval of 

erosion and channeling between the time during which the Bladen was 

deposited and the time when the Donoho Creek was deposited (Weems 

and others, 2011). 

 The only Paleogene unit encountered in the map region is the 

Castle Hayne Limestone (H.W. Miller, 1910; Baum and others, 1978; 

Ward and others, 1978), separated from immediately underlying Cretaceous deposits by a prolonged unconformity that spans about 30 

million years. The Castle Hayne, which is part of the Trent Supergroup 

of Weems and others (2004), is found only in a very limited area in the 

northeastern corner of the map within a deeply incised paleovalley 

system (Weems and others, 2011). Nannofossils from these sediments 

indicate placement within calcareous nannofossil zone NP 16 for this 

sequence (late Lutetian, middle Eocene, about 42 Ma according to 

Gradstein and others, 2004). Their age is somewhat younger than the 

46 Ma radiometric age obtained by Harris and Fullagar (1989) from an 

older part of the Castle Hayne (zone NP 15). The mineralogy of the 

Castle Hayne Limestone and its fauna clearly indicate that it accumulated in a shallow to mid-shelf environment far from any significant 

source of detrital sediments; therefore, it could not have been deposited 

in restricted estuary-like channels in this area. Instead, the channels 

were filled only well after they were cut and possibly enlarged by submarine erosion. This unit must have been continuous over much or all of 

the map area but was later removed from most of the area by erosion. 

 Another unconformity, representing a very prolonged erosional 

interval of almost 40 million years, occurs above the Castle Hayne 

Limestone. Above the uncomformity is the middle to upper Pliocene 

Duplin Formation (Dall, 1898), which is named for deposits exposed 

along the sides of a collapsed sink-hole feature called Natural Well near 

Magnolia, Duplin County, in the northeastern corner of the map. The 

Duplin and all younger map units belong to the Nomini Supergroup of 

Weems and others (2004). The Duplin is a very shelly sand deposit that 

generally has been considered to be time-equivalent to the Rushmere 

and Morgarts Beach Members of the Yorktown Formation in northern 

North Carolina and Virginia (Ward and Blackwelder, 1980). The Rushmere and Morgarts Beach have been dated at between 3.5 and 3.0 Ma 

(Dowsett and Wiggs, 1992); however, recent strontium dating of shells 

from outcrops along the Lumber River in the southwestern corner of 

the map indicates that the age of the Duplin at that location is within 

the range of 2.8 Ma to 2.2 Ma (Graybill and others, 2009), which is 

younger than previously assumed. The strontium dating suggests that 

the Duplin instead may be equivalent in age to the unit immediately 

overlying the Rushmere and Morgarts Beach Members in the Roanoke 

Rapids region (called “Ty3” by Weems and Lewis, 2007), and either or 

both units could be equivalent to the Moore House Member of the 

Yorktown; so far, there is no way to firmly establish which of these 

possibilities is true. Like the Castle Hayne, the Duplin now has a very 

patchy distribution but must have been continuous at one time across 

all or most of the map area. 

 The map region lies astride a zone of relative uplift called the 

Cape Fear arch (for example, by Bonini, 1956) or the Great Carolina 

Ridge (for example, by Spangler, 1950), which has been intermittently 

upwarped throughout most of the Cenozoic Era. The presence of late 

Pliocene and Quaternary terrace deposits that are not perceptibly 

upwarped indicates that pronounced regional uplift across the Cape 

Fear arch ceased by the late Pliocene (about 3 million years ago), 

though evidence for limited local uplift along the buried Fountains 

Creek fault is presented below in the section on structural geology. 

 Above the Duplin are a number of stratigraphic units that can 

be recognized in the area beneath geomorphic terraces that are 

bounded both landward and seaward by erosional scarps. The oldest 

two of these units were considered in the past to be late Pliocene in age 

(for example, Weems and Lewis, 2007; Weems and others, 2009), but 

the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary was moved downward from 1.8 Ma 

to 2.59 Ma (Riccardi, 2009; Walker and Geissman, 2009) which now 

places these two units completely within the Pleistocene. At one time, 

all of these units were described as terrace formations (for example, 

Clark and others, 1912; Cooke and others, 1943), but this concept 

was abandoned (Oaks and Coch, 1973; Oaks and others, 1974) and 

the terminology for the geomorphic terraces and scarps was separated 

from the terminology for the lithologic units that lie beneath them. The 

names and interrelationships among these various features recognizable in the map area are summarized in table 1. 

 The units above the Duplin mapped here were traced southward from southeastern Virginia (Johnson, Goodwin, and others, 

1987; Mixon and others, 1989). The names established for them there 

also are used here, partly for ease of correlation with the geologic map 

of the Roanoke Rapids 30' × 60' quadrangle (Weems and others, 2009) 

and partly because (except for the Bacons Castle) their lithostratigraphic definitions are well constrained. A synonymous nomenclature 

(also shown in table 1) exists for some of these terrace units in southern 

North Carolina and northern North Carolina (DuBar and Solliday, 

1963; DuBar, 1971; DuBar and others, 1974; W. Miller, 1985; Soller 

and Mills, 1991; Harris, 1996) and in central South Carolina 

(Colquhoun, 1969; Weems and Lemon, 1993; Weems and others, 

1997). The sediments mapped by Owens (1989) as the Bear Bluff 

Formation almost certainly are younger than sediments at the type 

section of the Bear Bluff, a name now abandoned (Campbell, 1992), so 

continued use of that name is inappropriate. The units above the 

Duplin in this map area are lithologically defined, but mapping their 

locations is greatly aided by their geomorphic expression. Each stratigraphic unit consists of rather similar complexes of fluvial deposits in its 

western outcrop region that grade eastward into marginal-marine 

back-barrier deposits.

 An updip facies of the Chowan River Formation underlies the 

Coharie terrace (Stephenson, 1912). This unit has been mapped at the 

surface in southern Virginia in the Emporia 30' × 60' map area to the 

north (Weems and others, 2010) and in northern North Carolina in the 

Roanoke Rapids 30' × 60' map area (Weems and others, 2009). Auger 

holes (Weems and others, 2010) show that the outcrop belt in the western Coastal Plain of southern Virginia is connected in the subsurface 

along a buried estuarine channel southeastward to the type area of the 

Chowan River Formation along the banks of the Chowan River 

(Blackwelder, 1981). The updip facies of the Chowan River Formation 

crops out extensively only in the northwestern corner of the Elizabethtown quadrangle in the vicinity of Hope Mills. In a few other areas, 

notably in the northeastern part of the map, leached shallow-marine 

strata that are closer in lithology to typical Chowan River beds occur 

along the edges of stream valleys beneath younger terrace units. The 

Chowan River Formation has been estimated to be between 2.4 and 

1.9 Ma in age (Blackwelder, 1981). 

 Younger terrace deposits between the elevations of 185 and 

105 ft previously were lumped together to the north in Virginia as the 

Bacons Castle Formation (Coch, 1965). There are, however, two 

distinct units represented within this formation that are separated by a 

scarp at 137 to 147 ft. This scarp has been called the “Parler scarp” 

in South Carolina (Colquhoun, 1965) and the “Mechanicsville scarp” in 

northern South Carolina and southern North Carolina (DuBar and 

others, 1974). The older name, “Parler scarp” is used herein. The 

older terrace deposit above the Parler scarp is here designated as the 

“Varina Grove unit” because it is equivalent to the Varina Grove unit of 

the Bacons Castle Formation in Virginia in its type area (Ramsey, 

1985; Johnson, Goodwin, and others, 1987) and because no other 

name has been proposed for it. No direct age estimate can be made 

for the Varina Grove unit, but its age here is placed at around 2.0 Ma, 

midway between the age of the next younger Waccamaw Formation 

and the next older Chowan River Formation. 

 The Waccamaw Formation includes the Bahramsville and 

Moorings units, which also are units within the Bacons Castle Formation to the north (Oaks and Coch, 1973; Berquist and Ramsey, 1985; 

Johnson, Goodwin, and others, 1987; Johnson, Ward, and Peebles, 

1987; Weems and others, 2009, 2010). At Walker’s Bluff, within the 

southern map area southeast of Elizabethtown on the Cape Fear River, 

a shallow-marine-shelf deposit is present directly beneath the Bahramsville unit that has been biostratigraphically dated as early Pleistocene 

(Newton and others, 1978; Graybill and others, 2009). This marine 

unit can be assigned to the Waccamaw Formation because it yields 

strontium ages that are virtually identical to ages obtained from the type 

area of the Waccamaw Formation along the Waccamaw River (W. 

Burleigh Harris, Univerity of North Carolina—Wilmington, oral 

commun., 2009). To avoid confusion, this shelly marine facies of the 

Waccamaw is here assigned to the James City Member of the Waccamaw Formation because the James City Member was named for 

marine strata that are age equivalent to the type Waccamaw (DuBar 

and Solliday, 1963; Blackwelder, 1981; Weems and others, 2011). 

The generally thin and patchy, marine Waccamaw lithologies appear to 

be conformable with the overlying and aerially more extensive estuarine 

and deltaic Bahramsville lithologies; therefore both facies are here 

mapped together. Shallow-marine Waccamaw beds have been traced 

in auger holes westward as far as Abbottsburg and Dublin, almost to the 

toe of the westernmost barrier ridge of the Moorings unit sands. Local 

rapid infilling of the coastal region during the Waccamaw transgression 

appears to have allowed successive barrier ridges to form seaward of 

each other relatively rapidly, burying shallow-marine Waccamaw 

sediments beneath successive, slightly younger and more seaward barriers. In other areas where multiple barrier ridges did not develop, 

shallow-shelf Waccamaw deposits are not known to be preserved. 

 East of the Waccamaw outcrop belt, and below elevations of 

110 ft, is the outcrop belt of the Windsor Formation. The Windsor 

includes some lagoonal deposits near Rose Hill and Costin that are 

fossiliferous, but they are more clayey than the Waccamaw marine 

beds, contain a distinctly more brackish fauna, and include taxa that 

clearly are younger than the Waccamaw Formation. All Pleistocene 

units in the map area younger than the Windsor (the Charles City, 

Chuckatuck, Shirley, and Tabb Formations) represent nonmarine, 

fluvial to estuarine marsh depositional environments. The estuarine to 

marine facies of those units occur only to the east and south of the map 

area. The ages of the Windsor, Charles City, Chuckatuck, Shirley, and 

Tabb Formations (Johnson, 1976; Johnson and Berquist, 1989) have 

been estimated based on studies of units in coastal South Carolina that 

have different formational names but underlie the same terrace surfaces 

(Weems and Lemon, 1993; Weems and others, 1997). 

 Extensive sheets of windblown sand are present across all but 

the southeastern part of the map area, and they have been mapped as a 

separate unit distinct from the terrace deposits. The Sand Hills region, 

to the west and northwest of the map area, is extensively capped by this 

same complex of windblown sands. These deposits were named the 

Pinehurst Formation in Moore County, N.C. (Conley, 1962; Bartlett, 

1967), and the name is used here. Many of these deposits have weak 

or no soil-profile development and locally are often called “sugar sands” 

because they have only incipient soil profiles developed on them. More 

limited local deposits of this sort occur over a wide area in the Carolina 

and Georgia coastal plains (Markewich and Markewich, 1994), but they 

are exceptionally thick and widespread in the Sand Hills and in the 

Elizabethtown region. Two optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages 

from these windblown sands in the map region indicate that they range 

in age at least from 8,575±1,420 to 13,000±930 years before present 

(B.P.) (1σ standard deviation) (Shannon A. Mahan, U.S. Geological 

Survey, written commun. concerning localities AU–5–05 and HA–6–04, 

2005 and 2006, respectively). Radiocarbon ages from wood and peat 

samples taken from within these windblown sand deposits in the map 

area yield ages ranging from 2,050±40 to greater than 51,800 years 

B.P. (John P. McGeehin, U.S. Geological Survey, written commun. concerning localities CC–1–07, CS–7–08, ES–4–08, HA–5–04, NL–2–06, 

SL–4–07, SL–6–07, and TO–3–08, 2005, 2007, 2008). These dates 

are consistent with other studies that indicate that these windblown sand 

sheets and associated Carolina bays mostly formed during the Wisconsin 

glacial interval (Frey, 1953, 1955; Whitehead, 1964; Soller, 1988; 

Markewich and Markewich, 1994; Ivester and others, 2004, 2007), 

though the sands locally have been reactivated in Holocene time. These 

deposits are intimately associated with the “Carolina bays” (Johnson, 

1942; Kaczorowski, 1977) that are prominent in this region, and the 

alignment of the sand deposits generally matches the long axis of the 

bays. The windblown sand sheets and Carolina bays both appear to 

have formed through the action of persistent strong winds that blew 

from northwest to southeast during the Wisconsin glacial interval. These 

winds paralleled the edge of the great ice sheet that then covered northern North America and probably also were responsible for the extensive 

windblown loess deposits of the central United States and the Sand Hills 

of Nebraska (Zanner and Kuzila, 2001). 

 In the Cape Fear River valley, alluvium occurs beneath two 

distinct terrace surfaces that have been mapped separately. A similar 

stratigraphy has been documented in the Roanoke River valley (Weems 

and Lewis, 2007), and a sample from the basal sands beneath the 

higher (older) terrace deposit in the Roanoke River valley yielded a 

quartz blue-light OSL age of 17,200±780 years B.P. (1σ standard 

deviation). This age indicates that this unit in the Roanoke River valley 

is no older than late Wisconsinan. The comparable terrace along the 

Cape Fear River also appears to represent a late Wisconsinan braidedriver regime of the Cape Fear River that preceded a later postWisconsinan meandering-river regime (Leigh and others, 2004).

STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY

 Five faults have been recognized in the Elizabethtown 30' × 60'

map area based on offset anomalies in basement rocks. A northeasttrending fault, probably the southwestern extension of the Fountains 

Creek fault in the Roanoke Rapids region (Weems and Lewis, 2007), 

can be traced across the Elizabethtown quadrangle at the toe of subtle 

gradient anomalies along Six Runs Creek, South River, Cape Fear 

River, and Lumber River (immediately to the south of the map region). 

This northeast-trending fault obviously has a component of vertical 

offset with the downside to the east in all but the far northern map part 

of the map area. If this fault is part of the Fountains Creek transpressional fault system, it also has a significant component of right-lateral 

strike-slip motion. A component of strike-slip motion would explain the 

subtle compressional arch that crests to its west between the Turnbull 

Creek and South River faults (see cross section A–A'). 

 Harris and others (1979) recognized a single elongate, 

northwest-trending fault in the map area that they named the Cape 

Fear fault. Southeast of the Fountains Creek fault this feature is readily 

recognizable, but to the northwest there are three faults present, none 

of which can be clearly designated as a direct extension of the Cape 

Fear fault. Therefore, the name Cape Fear fault is restricted to the fault 

segment southeast of the Fountains Creek fault and the three faults to 

the northwest are given separate names: the Turnbull Creek, South 

River, and Clinton faults (Weems and others, 2011). No seismicity has 

been reported in this region; however, the gradient anomalies immediately northwest of the Fountains Creek fault could not persist in unlithified sediments for a prolonged amount of geologic time, which 

indicates that some fairly recent fault motion has occurred at least along 

this fault. The Cape Fear fault, as here restricted to the area east of the 

Fountains Creek fault, appears to be a scissor fault with the throw on its 

southwest side increasing in magnitude toward the southeast beyond 

the map area. These contrasts indicate that the Cape Fear arch is a 

compressionally upwarped dome that is confined to the west of the 

Fountains Creek fault, whereas southeast of the Fountains Creek fault, 

the Cape Fear fault defines a hinge zone that dips to the southwest.

GEOMORPHOLOGY

 The present geomorphology began to develop during a sealevel stand about 230 ft above present sea level in the earliest Pleistocene. This high-sea-level stand brought shallow coastal waters of the 

Atlantic Ocean westward far enough to cover the entire map area. 

Deposition associated with this transgression blanketed the northwestern corner of the map area with deposits of the Chowan River Formation, which effectively erased any earlier geomorphology that may have 

been present. After that, sequential high-sea-level stands produced the 

other progressively lower terrace deposits that now blanket the map 

area. Although the matter remains controversial, these lower terrace 

deposits probably were produced by changes in world sea level that 

have occurred since a major melting of most of the Antarctic ice sheet 

in the mid-Pliocene (Barrett and others, 1992; Wilson, 1995; Ingólfsson, 2004). Since then, the East Antarctic ice sheet has grown more 

or less continuously, bringing net world sea level steadily downward as 

water vapor derived from the world ocean has been transported by air 

currents and dropped in the form of snow upon the East Antarctic polar 

ice cap. In contrast, during this same time interval, northern polar ice 

sheets in northern North America, Europe, and Siberia have come and 

gone periodically on time scales of about 100,000 years, and the 

modern West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets probably also have 

come and gone at longer intervals. When these ice caps melted, world 

sea level went up; when they reformed, world sea level went down. 

The melting and reforming of these ice sheets has produced a repetitive 

rise and fall in world sea level that has moved the level of the world’s 

ocean up and down to nearly the same degree time after time. The 

steady growth of the East Antarctic ice sheet, however, when added to 

this oscillatory pattern of sea level rise and fall, has prevented each 

successive oscillatory rise in world sea level from quite reaching the 

height of the one before it. The interaction of these two effects has 

resulted in the preservation of a number of prehistoric high-sea-level 

shorelines across the Atlantic Coastal Plain region at successively lower 

elevations, and no tectonic uplift over the last several million years has 

been necessary to cause this phenomenon. These paleoshorelines 

mark the toe of each of the geomorphic erosional scarps that are found 

across the map area and also mark the shoreward limit of their associated sedimentary deposits. Because these paleoshorelines, like the 

shoreline today, run far upstream along drowned estuaries, the resultant 

regional map patterns are conceptually simple but geographically complex.

 A number of northeast-southwest-trending barrier-island sand 

deposits are present in the map area. They are mostly assigned to the 

Moorings unit of the Waccamaw Formation, but several barrier ridges 

in the east-central part of the map area are barrier sands that formed 

within a large lagoon that formed later during the time that the Windsor 

Formation was being deposited. Extensive late Pleistocene 

windblown-sand deposits, mostly oriented northwest-southeast along 

an axis that is almost orthogonal to the barrier-island sands, cover much 

of the landscape in this region and have partially obscured the geomorphology that resulted from the terrace deposits. In parts of the southwestern part of the map area, the sands of the northeast-trending 

barrier-island deposits were remobilized and blown toward the southeast to form a later generation of smaller, southeast-extending, linear 

dune ridges. Where sand sheets are widespread, the winds that formed 

them also created many of the most obvious land forms—the Carolina 

bays. Although some bays seem to represent wind-created deflation 

features, most seem to have resulted from ellipsoidal dunes that developed by having their rims built up above the terrace surfaces on which 

they rest. Where bays sit directly on older terrace surfaces that have 

thick, clay-rich weathering profiles, the underlying clayey soils block 

downward water percolation and thus allow the bays to become 

swamps or natural lakes. Where bays resulted from wind-driven excavation and deflation, and the underlying materials consist of fairly fresh 

and unweathered windblown sands, bays tend to be well drained 

through subsurface flow and are not floored by swamps or lakes. 

 In the area around Magnolia, between Warsaw and Rose Hill, a 

number of sink-holes can be seen. These occur where subsurface dissolution of the Castle Hayne Limestone has created cavernous voids that 

have collapsed. The most prominent of these features is a large sinkhole called Natural Well, which is expressed on the the map as a bullseye-shaped feature about two miles southwest of Magnolia. This deep 

sinkhole, long known to geologists (for example, Conrad, 1845), 

exposes the top of the Castle Hayne Limestone and the Duplin Formation around its rim. 

 The largest stream in the area, the Cape Fear River, runs along 

a fairly straight, southeast-trending course through much of the map 

area. The South River similarly is remarkably linear. Their trends parallel the strike of the northwest-trending faults in the region, which 

suggests that their trends are tectonically controlled. In the northwestern part of the map area, the Cape Fear River makes a long prominent 

meander that is oriented at right angles to the northwest-oriented fault 

trend, and this also suggests that in some way it is controlled by subsurface structures. It is probably not accidental that the Cape Fear River 

runs consistently southwest of the Turnbull Creek fault. Like many 

Coastal Plain rivers (White, 1966), the Cape Fear River has tended to 

migrate toward the southwest over time, cutting away the headwaters 

of many of the creeks that drain southward toward the Lumber River. 

The Lumber River has relatively little downcutting power, and therefore 

it has a much more elevated stream gradient than the gradient of the 

Cape Fear River. This means that the lower stream course of the Cape 

Fear River will continue to slowly capture drainage from the Lumber 

River as time goes by.

REFERENCES CITED

Baird, D., and Horner, J.R., 1979, Cretaceous dinosaurs of North Carolina: Brimleyana, v. 2, p. 1–28.

Barrett, P.J., Adams, C.J., McIntosh, W.C., Swisher, C.C., and Wilson, 

G.S., 1992, Geochronological evidence supporting Antarctic deglaciation three million years ago: Nature, v. 359, p. 816–818.

Bartlett, C.S., Jr., 1967, Geology of the Southern Pines quadrangle: 

Chapel Hill, N.C., University of North Carolina, unpublished M.S. 

thesis, 101 p.

Baum, G.R., Harris, W.B., and Zullo, V.A., 1978, Stratigraphic revision 

of the exposed middle Eocene to lower Miocene formations of North 

Carolina: Southeastern Geology, v. 20, no. 1, p. 1–19.

Berquist, C.R., Jr., and Ramsey, K.W., 1985, The Bahramsville unit; an 

intertidal to fluvial sequence between Yorktown and Windsor formations, southeastern Virginia: American Association of Petroleum 

Geologists Bulletin, v. 69, no. 9, p. 1433.

Blackwelder, B.W., 1981, Stratigraphy of upper Pliocene and lower 

Pleistocene marine and estuarine deposits of northeastern North Carolina, in Contributions to stratigraphy: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 

1502–B, p. B1–B16.

Bonini, W.E., 1957, Subsurface geology in the area of the Cape Fear 

arch as determined by seismic-refraction measurements: Madison, 

University of Wisconsin, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 218 p.

Campbell, M.R., 1992, Molluscan biostratigraphy of the Pliocene beds of 

eastern South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina, in Dennison, 

J.M., and Stewart, K.G., eds., Geologic field guides to North Carolina 

and vicinity, Joint annual meeting of Geological Society of America, 

Southeastern Section, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, Eastern Section, and Paleontological Society, Southeastern 

Section, Winston-Salem, N.C., March, 1992: University of North 

Carolina-Chapel Hill, Department of Geology Geologic Guidebook 1, 

p. 145–151.

Clark, W.B., Miller, B.L., Stephenson, L.W., Johnson, B.L., and Parker, 

H.N., 1912, The coastal plain of North Carolina: North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, v. 3, 342 p., 29 plates.

Coch, N.K., 1965, Post-Miocene stratigraphy and morphology, inner 

coastal plain, southeastern Virginia: Office of Naval Research, Geography Branch Technical Report 6, 97 p.

Colquhoun, D.J., 1965, Terrace sediment complexes in central South 

Carolina, Atlantic Coastal Plain Geological Association field conference 

1965 Guidebook, 6th Annual Field Conference Guidebook, Columbia, 

S.C.: Columbia S.C., University of South Carolina, 62 p.

Colquhoun, D.J., 1969, Geomorphology of the lower coastal plain of 

South Carolina: Division of Geology: South Carolina State Development Board Publication MS–15, 36 p.

Conley, J.F., 1962, Geology and mineral resources of Moore County, 

North Carolina: North Carolina Division of Mineral Resources, Department of Conservation and Development Bulletin, v. 76, 40 p.

Conrad, T.A., 1845, Fossils of the medial Tertiary of Miocene Formations of the United States: Philadelphia, Pa., J. Dobson, 80 p.

Cooke, C.W., Gardner, J.A., and Woodring, W.P., 1943, Correlation of 

the Cenozoic formations of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain and the 

Caribbean region: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 54, p. 

1713–1723.

Dall, W.H., 1898, A table of North American Tertiary horizons, correlated with one another and with those of western Europe, with annotations, in Walcott, C.D., ed., Eighteenth annual report of the United 

States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior, 1896–1897; 

part II, Papers chiefly of a theoretical nature: U.S. Geological Survey 

Annual Report, v. 18, p. 323–348.

Dowsett, H.J., and Wiggs, L.B., 1992, Planktonic foraminiferal assemblage of the Yorktown Formation, Virginia, USA: Micropaleontology, 

v. 38, no. 1, p. 75–86.

DuBar, J.R., 1971, Neogene stratigraphy of the lower Coastal Plain of 

the Carolinas, 12th Annual Field Conference, Atlantic Coastal Plain 

Association, Myrtle Beach, S.C., October 23–24, 1971: Myrtle 

Beach, S.C., Atlantic Coastal Plain Geological Association, v. 12, 128 

p.

DuBar, J.R., Johnson, H.S., Jr., Thom, B., and Hatchell, W.O., 1974, 

Neogene stratigraphy and morphology, south flank of the Cape Fear 

Arch, North and South Carolina, in Oaks, R.Q., Jr., and DuBar, J.R., 

Post-Miocene stratigraphy; Central and southern Atlantic Coastal Plain: 

Logan, Utah, Utah State University Press, p. 139–173.

DuBar, J.R., and Solliday, J.R., 1963, Stratigraphy of the Neogene 

deposits, lower Neuse Estuary, North Carolina: Southeastern Geology, 

v. 4, p. 213–233.

Farrell, K.M., Ward, L.W., and Heron, Jr., 2001, Cape Fear River transect; the Upper Cretaceous Cape Fear, Black Creek and Peedee formations of southeastern North Carolina and overlying Cenozoic section 

(milepost 111 to milepost 25), in Hoffman, C.W., ed., Field trip guidebook, April, 2001: Boulder, Colo., Geological Society of America, 

Southeastern Section, v. 50, p. 93–118.

Frey, D.G., 1953, Regional aspects of the late-glacial and post-glacial 

pollen succession of southeastern North Carolina: Ecological Monographs, v. 23, no. 3, p. 289–313.

Frey, D.G., 1955, A time revision of the Pleistocene pollen chronology 

of southeastern North Carolina: Ecology, v. 36, no. 4, p. 762–763.

Gohn, G.S., 1992, Revised stratigraphic nomenclature, definitions, and 

correlations for the Cretaceous formations in USGS-Clubhouse Crossroads #1, Dorchester County, South Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey 

Professional Paper 1518, 39 p.

Gradstein, Felix, Ogg, James, and Smith, Alan, eds., 2004, A geologic 

timescale 2004: Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press, 589 

p., 1 pl.

Graybill, E.A., Harris, W.B., Kelley, P., Dietl, G., and Visaggi, C.C., 

2009, Age of the Duplin and Waccamaw formations, Cape Fear River 

basin, North Carolina: Geological Society of America Abstracts with 

Programs, v. 71, no. 1, p. 45.

Harris, W.B., 1996, An overview of the marine Tertiary and Quaternary 

deposits between Cape Fear and Cape Lookout, North Carolina, in

Cleary, W.J., ed., Environmental coastal geology; Cape Lookout to 

Cape Fear, Carolina Geological Society fieldtrip guidebook, Wilmington, N.C., November 8–10, 1996: Wilmington, N.C., North Carolina 

Geological Society, p. 1–10.

Harris, W.B., and Fullagar, P.D., 1989, Comparison of Rb-Sr and K-Ar 

dates of middle Eocene bentonite and glauconite, southeastern Atlantic 

Coastal Plain: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 101, p. 573-

577.

Harris, W.B., and Self-Trail, J.M., 2006, Late Cretaceous base level 

lowering in Campanian and Maastrichtian depositional sequences, Kure 

Beach, North Carolina: Stratigraphy, v. 3, no. 3, p. 195–216. 

Harris, W.B., Zullo, V.A., and Baum, G.R., 1979, Tectonic effects on 

Cretaceous, Paleogene, and early Neogene sedimentation, North Carolina, in Baum, G.R., Harris, W.B., and Zullo, V.A., eds., Structural and 

stratigraphic framework for the coastal plain of North Carolina, Carolina Geological Society Field Trip Guidebook (October 19–21, 1979), 

Wrightsville Beach, N.C.: Raleigh, N. C., Geological Survey Section, 

Dept. of Natural Resources and Community Development, p. 17–29.

Ingólfsson, Ó., 2004, Quaternary glacial and climate history of Antarctica, in Ehlers, J., and Gibbard, P.L., eds., Quaternary glaciationsExtent and chronology, part III; South America, Asia, Australia, Antarctica: Amsterdam, Elsevier, p. 3–43. 

Ivester, A.H., Brooks, M.J., and Taylor, B.E., 2007, Sedimentology and 

ages of Carolina Bay sand rims: Geological Society of America 

Abstracts with Programs, v. 39, no. 2, p. 5.

Ivester, A.H., Godfrey-Smith, D.I., Brooks, M.J., and Taylor, B.E., 2004, 

Chronology of Carolina bay sand rims and inland dunes on the Atlantic 

Coastal Plain, USA; The 3rd New World Luminescence Dating Workshop, Department of Earth Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, 

Nova Scotia, July 4–7, 2004: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Dalhousie 

University, p. 23.

Johnson, D.W., 1942, The origin of the Carolina Bays: New York, 

Columbia University Press, 341 p.

Johnson, G.H., 1976, Geology of the Mulberry Island, Newport News 

North, and Hampton quadrangles, Virginia: Virginia Division of 

Mineral Resources Report of Investigations 41, p. 1–72, with 1:24,000 

scale geologic maps.

Johnson, G.H., and Berquist, C.R., Jr., 1989, Geology and mineral 

resources of the Brandon and Norge quadrangles, Virginia: Virginia 

Division of Mineral Resources Publication 87, p. 1–28, with 1:24,000 

scale geologic maps.

Johnson, G.H., Goodwin, B.K., Ward, L.W., and Ramsey, K.W., 1987, 

Tertiary and Quaternary stratigraphy across the Fall Zone and western 

Coastal Plain, southern Virginia, Trip 3 in Whittecar, G.R., ed., Geological excursions in Virginia and North Carolina—Geological Society 

of America, Southeast Section, 36th Annual Meeting, 1987, Guidebook: Norfolk, Va., Old Dominion University, p. 87–144.

Johnson, G.H., Ward, L.W., and Peebles, P.C., 1987, Stratigraphy and 

paleontology of Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits of southeastern 

Virginia, in Whittecar, G.R., ed., Geological excursions in Virginia and 

North Carolina—Geological Society of America, Southeast Section, 

36th Annual Meeting, 1987, Guidebook: Norfolk, Va., Old Dominion 

University, p. 189–218. 

Kaczorowski, R.T., 1977, The Carolina bays; a comparison with modern 

oriented lakes: University of South Carolina, Coastal Research Division, Technical Report Number 13, 124 p.

Lawrence, D.P., and Hoffman, C.W., 1993, Geology of crystalline basement rocks beneath the North Carolina Coastal Plain: North Carolina 

Geological Survey Bulletin 95, p. 1–60.

Leigh, D.S., Srivastava, P., and Brook, G.A., 2004, Late Pleistocene 

braided rivers of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, USA: Quaternary Science 

Reviews, v. 23, p. 65–84.

Markewich, H.W., and Markewich, William, 1994, An overview of Pleistocene and Holocene inland dunes in Georgia and the Carolinas; morphology, distribution, age, and paleoclimate: U.S. Geological Survey 

Bulletin 206, 932 p.

Miller, B.L., 1910, Erosion intervals in the Tertiary of North Carolina and 

Virginia: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 20, p. 673–678.

Miller, H.W., 1966, Cretaceous vertebrate fauna from Phoebus Landing, 

North Carolina: Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, v. 82, 

no. 2, p. 93.

Miller, H.W., 1967, Cretaceous vertebrates from Phoebus Landing, 

North Carolina: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

Philadelphia, v. 119, p. 219-–239.

Miller, H.W., 1968, Additions to the Upper Cretaceous vertebrate fauna 

of Phoebus Landing, North Carolina: Journal of the Elisha Mitchell 

Scientific Society, v. 84, no. 4, p. 467–471.

Miller, W., III, 1985, The Flanner Beach Formation (middle Pleistocene) 

in eastern North Carolina: Tulane Studies in Geology and Paleontology, 

v. 18, no. 3, p. 93–122.

Mixon, R.B., Berquist, C.R., Jr., Newell, W.L., Johnson, G.H., Powars, 

D.S., Schindler, J.S., and Rader, E.K., 1989, Geologic map and generalized cross sections of the Coastal Plain and adjacent parts of the Piedmont, Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations 

Series Map I–2033.

Newton, C.R., Belknap, D.F., and Lynts, G.W., 1978, Early Pleistocene 

(Calabrian) age of the Waccamaw Formation at Walker’s Bluff, Elizabethtown, N.C.: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with 

Programs, v. 10, no. 4, p. 194.

North American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature, 2005, 

North American Stratigraphic Code: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 89, no. 11, p. 1547–1591.

Oaks, R.Q., and Coch, N.K., 1973, Post-Miocene stratigraphy and morphology, southeastern Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources 

Bulletin 82, p. 1–135, 2 plates.

Oaks, R.Q., Coch, N.K., Sanders, J.E., and Flint, R.F., 1974, PostMiocene shorelines and sea levels, southeastern Virginia, in Oaks, 

R.Q., and DuBar, J.R., eds., Post-Miocene stratigraphy, central and 

southern Atlantic Coastal Plain: Utah State University Press, Logan 

Utah, 275 p.

Owens, J.P., 1989, Geologic map of the Cape Fear region, Florence 1° 

x 2° Quadrangle and northern half of the Georgetown 1° x 2° Quadrangle, North Carolina and South Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey 

Miscellaneous Investigation Series Map I–1948–A.

Ramsey, K.W., 1985, Geology of the Bacons Castle Formation; YorkJames Peninsula, Virginia: Geological Society of America, Abstracts 

with Programs, v. 19, no. 2, p. 125.

Riccardi, A.C., 2009, Ratification of the definition of the base of Quaternary System/Period (and top of the Neogene System/Period), and 

redefinition of the base of the Pleistocene Series/Epoch (and top of the 

Pliocene Series/Epoch); Letter from Alberto C. Riccardi to Professor 

Paul R. Bown (2 June 2009), reporting endorsement by the Executive 

Committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences of the 

Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary as proposed by the International Commission on Stratigraphy: International Association of Geomorphologists Web page, accessed November 19, 2010 at 

http://www.geomorph.org/sp/arch/IUGS_Ratification_Q_&_Pleistoc

ene.pdf.

Robb, A.J., III, 1989, The Upper Cretaceous (Campanian, Black Creek 

Formation) fossil fish fauna of Phoebus Landing, Bladen County, North 

Carolina: The Mosasaur, v. 4, p. 75–92.

Self-Trail, J.M., Prowell, D.C., and Christopher, R.A., 2004a, The 

Collins Creek and Pleasant Creek Formations—Two new subsurface 

units in the Carolina/Georgia Coastal Plain: Southeastern Geology, v. 

42, no. 4, p. 237–252.

Self-Trail, J.M., Wrege, B.M., Prowell, D.C., Seefelt, E.M., and Weems, 

R.E., 2004b, Preliminary physical stratigraphy and geophysical data of 

the USGS Elizabethtown core (BL244/BL-C-1-2003), Bladen County, 

North Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2004–1301, 

297 p.

Sohl, N.F., 1976, Reinstatement of the name Cape Fear Formation in 

North and South Carolina, in Cohee, G.V., and Wright, W.B., eds., 

Changes in stratigraphic nomenclature by the U.S. Geological Survey, 

1975: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1422–A, p. A68.

Sohl, N.F., and Owens, J.P., 1991, Cretaceous stratigraphy of the Carolina coastal plain, in Horton, J.W., Jr., and Zullo, V.A., eds., The geology of the Carolinas, Carolina Geological Society fiftieth anniversary 

volume: Knoxville, Tenn., University of Tennessee Press, p. 191–220.

Soller, D.R., 1988, Geology and tectonic history of the lower Cape Fear 

River valley, southeastern North Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey 

Professional Paper 1466–A, p. A1–A60.

Soller, D.R., and Mills, H.H., 1991, Surficial geology and geomorphology, in Horton, J.W., Jr., and Zullo, V.A., eds., The geology of the 

Carolinas, Carolina Geological Society fiftieth anniversary volume: 

Knoxville, Tenn., University of Tennessee Press, p. 290–308.

Spangler, W.B., 1950, Subsurface geology of Atlantic Coastal Plain of 

North Carolina: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 34, no. 1, p. 100–132.

Stephenson, L.W., 1907, Some facts relating to the Mesozoic deposits of 

the coastal plain of North Carolina, in Notes from the Geological Laboratory, 1906–1907: Johns Hopkins University Circular 7, p. 93–99.

Stephenson, L.W., 1912, The Cretaceous, Lafayette, and Quaternary 

formations, in The coastal plain of North Carolina; Part 1, The physiography and geology of the coastal plain of North Carolina: North 

Carolina Geological and Economic Survey [Report], v. 3, p. 73–171, 

258–290.

Walker, J.D., and Geisman, J.W., compilers, 2009, Geologic time scale: 

Boulder, Colo., Geological Society of America, 1 p., doi: 

10.1130/2009.CTS004R2C.

Ward, L.W., and Blackwelder, B.W., 1980, Stratigraphic revision of 

upper Miocene and lower Pliocene beds of the Chesapeake Group, 

middle Atlantic Coastal Plain: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 

1482–D, 61 p.

Ward, L.W., Lawrence, D.R., and Blackwelder, B.W., 1978, Stratigraphic revision of the middle Eocene, Oligocene, and lower Miocene; 

Atlantic Coastal Plain of North Carolina, in Contributions to stratigraphy, 1979: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin, 1457–F, p. 1–23.

Weems, R.E., and Lemon, E.M., Jr., 1993, Geology of the Cainhoy, 

Charleston, Fort Moultrie, and North Charleston quadrangles, Charleston and Berkeley Counties, South Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey 

Miscellaneous Investigations Series, Map I–1935, scale 1:24,000.

Weems, R.E., Lemon, E.M., Jr., and Nelson, M.S., 1997, Geology of the 

Pringletown, Ridgeville, Summerville, and Summerville Northwest 

7.5-minute quadrangles, Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester 

Counties, South Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous 

Investigations Series, Map I–2502. 

Weems, R.E., and Lewis, W.C., 2007, Detailed sections from auger 

holes in the Roanoke Rapids 1:100,000 map sheet: U.S. Geological 

Survey Open-File Report 2007–1092, 155 p.

Weems, R.E., Lewis, W.C., and Aleman-Gonzalez, W.B., 2009, Surficial 

geologic map of the Roanoke Rapids 30’ x 60’ quadrangle, North 

Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2009–1149, 1 

sheet, scale 1:100,000.

Weems, R.E., Lewis W.C., Murray, J., Queen, D., Grey, J.B., and 

DeJong, B.D., 2011, Detailed sections from auger holes in the Elizabethtown 1:100,000 map sheet: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File 

Report Number 2011–1115, 286 p.

Weems, R.E., Schindler, J.S., and Lewis, W.C., 2010, Detailed sections 

from auger holes in the Emporia 1:100,000-scale quadrangle, North 

Carolina and Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 

2010–1121, 288 p., available online at 

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1121.

Weems, R.E., Self-Trail, J.M., and Edwards, L.E., 2004, Supergroup 

stratigraphy of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains (Middle? Jurassic 

through Holocene, eastern North America): Southeastern Geology, v. 

42, no. 4, p. 191–216.

White, W.A., 1966, Drainage asymmetry and the Carolina capes: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 77, p. 223–240.

Whitehead, D.R., 1964, Fossil pine pollen and full-glacial vegetation in 

southeastern North Carolina: Ecology, v. 45, no. 4, p. 767–777.

Wilson, G.S., 1995, The Neogene East Antarctic ice sheet–A dynamic or 

stable feature: Quaternary Science Reviews, v. 14, p. 101–123.

Zanner, C.W., and Kuzila, M.S., 2001, Nebraska’s Carolina bays: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 33, no. 6, p. 

438.

Unit Overlying surface

(Virginia names)

Maximum elevation

(feet)

Intervening scarp

Chowan River Formation Ashland plain1 235

Broad Rock scarp

Varina Grove unit Essex plain1 182

Parler scarp

Waccamaw Formation Norge uplands 137

Surry scarp

Windsor Formation Lackey plain 105

Ruthville scarp

Charles City Formation Grove plain 80

Lee Hall scarp

Chuckatuck Formation Grafton plain 62

Kings Mill scarp

Shirley Formation Huntington flat 49

Suffolk scarp

Tabb Formation Todds flat

Equivalent unit names in 

southern North and South Carolina

James City Formation

Canepatch Formation or Ladson Formation

Flanner Beach Formation or Ten Mile Hill beds

Socastee Formation

Wando Formation

Overlying surface

(North and South Carolina names)

Coharie terrace

Sunderland terrace

Okefenokee terrace

Wicomico terrace

Penholoway terrace

Upper Talbot terrace

Lower Talbot terrace

Pamlico terrace

Princess Anne terrace

Silver Bluff terrace

26

17

 7

Table 1. Summarization of Pleistocene units, terraces, and scarps.

1

Name introduced in Weems and Lewis (2007)

SURFICIAL GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE ELIZABETHTOWN 30' × 60' QUADRANGLE, NORTH CAROLINA

By

Robert E. Weems, William C. Lewis, and E. Allen Crider

2011

Any use of trade, product, or firm names in this publication is for descriptive

purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government

This map and the accompanying data files are available at:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1121