106 37th Annual Undergraduate Research Exhibition Sponsored by Sigma Gamma Epsilon (Posters)

All students are encouraged to submit research to this poster session. Investigations from ANY geological subdiscipline are welcome. Presenters who are SGE members are eligible to compete for monetary awards distributed at the meeting.

Monday, 20 October 2025
8:00 AM - 5:30 PM
HBGCC, Hall 1

(U-Th)/He Zircon Thermochronology of the Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee: Insights into the Thermal History of the Southern Appalachian Basin

Paper number: 106-41
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:00 AM – 8:00 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia represents the southernmost extent of the Appalachian Basin—a composite retroarc foreland basin shaped by compressive forces from three successive Paleozoic orogenies, the most recent being the Alleghenian-Ouachita Orogeny. While the thermal evolution of the Northern Appalachian Basin is well documented, the post-depositional thermal history of the Southern Appalachian Basin, particularly the Cumberland Plateau, remains poorly constrained. To address this gap, we collected ten sandstone samples from exposed Mississippian and Pennsylvanian strata across the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. Fifty zircon grains (five per sample) were analyzed using (U-Th)/He detrital zircon (ZHe) thermochronometry to reconstruct the region’s post-depositional thermal history. ZHe results show significant variability in thermal resetting across different stratigraphic units: 21 of the 50 grains were reset. We used the thermal modeling software HeFTy to reconstruct time–temperature paths of the reset grains under geologically plausible constraints. Results indicate maximum burial temperatures varied across the plateau, reaching ~140–200°C, followed by cooling during ~320–250 Ma. This cooling likely reflects regional exhumation in the Southern Appalachian Basin during the late stages of the Alleghenian–Ouachita Orogeny.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-413074

© Copyright 2025 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.