Upper Cretaceous and Cenozoic Geology of the Southeastern Atlantic Coastal Plain : Atlanta, Georgia to Chesapeake, Virginia (Volume T172)

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Field Trip Guidebooks Series, Volume 172.The Atlantic Coastal Plain Province is a low-relief physiographic plain, underlain by a gently-dipping, seaward-thickening wedge of unconsolidated Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments.

The province extends from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to the northwestern extension of the Peninsular arch in Georgia and is separated into emergent and submergent parts.

The emerged part, located above sea level, is called the Coastal Plain, whereas the submerged part is the continental shelf.

The eastern boundary of the Coastal Plain is the Atlantic shore and the western boundary or inner margin the Fall Line.

The Fall Line marks the approximate contact between the underlying igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Piedmont Province and the generally unconsolidated sediments of the Coastal Plain.

Coastal Plain sediments contain a record of most of the Upper Cretaceous and Cenozoic stages.

These sediments reach their maximum thickness in the Salisbury, Albermarle, and Southeast Georgia embayments, and thin appreciably over the intervening South New Jersey, Norfolk, and Cape Fear arches.

This series of alternating basins and highs has produced a complex sequence of lithologic units that vary extensively on a local as well as a regional scale.

Lithologic units in the Coastal Plain consist of siliciclastics and carbonates, with carbonates being more abundant in the Southeast Georgia embayment.

Mild deformation related to reactivation ofearly Mesozoic grabens and half-grabens has affected various parts of the stratigraphic section.