Abstract
Located in the northwestern part of the Charlotte terrane of the Carolina zone in central North Carolina, the Mocksville complex is a tabular body which trends NE-SW and covers an area of approximately 500 km2. It consists of late Proterozoic to early Paleozoic, moderately metamorphosed and variably deformed, mainly plutonic ultramafic, mafic and felsic rocks. The ultramafic rocks are pyroxenites, wehrlites, and hornblendites; the mafic rocks are metagabbros and amphibolites; and, the felsic rocks are granites and diorites. Field, geochemical, and geothermobarometry studies suggest that the igneous and metaigneous rocks of the Mocksville complex are likely to be genetically related, formed by calc-alkaline differentiation of mafic magma, and originated in a moderate pressure environment (~8 kbar). Based mainly on the study of volcanic rocks, the terranes of the Carolina zone have been interpreted as magmatic arc terranes in most tectonic models concerning the evolution of the southern Appalachian orogen. The geochemical features of the mafic and ultramafic plutonic rocks of the Mocksville complex corroborate the arc origin of the Charlotte terrane.
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