Beneath Our Feet: A Walking Tour of Chapel Hill’s Geology (2010)

Undergraduates: Zachary Vance, Spring 2010 Petrology Class Kayla Ireland, Michael Ackerson Allen Glazner

Faculty Advisor: Allen Glazner
Department: Geology

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Many people walk through Chapel Hill and around the campus of the University of North Carolina daily, yet few consider the geologic events that are responsible for shaping our town as it appears today. The Chapel Hill area has a complex and intriguing geologic history, including accretion of exotic terrains, episodes of compression, intrusion of igneous rocks, and extension leading to the formation of sedimentary basins. This area also experienced an overarching metamorphism approximately 600 million years ago that altered the composition of the rocks in the entire area. Many rocks indicative of these geologic events are visible throughout campus and the town of Chapel Hill, and are easily accessible to the public. The students of this year’s Petrology and Plate Tectonics course within the Geological Sciences department have created a booklet available to the public that outlines the geologic history of the Chapel Hill area and leads one through a tour of the rocks that that portray these events. Rock outcrops from around Chapel Hill have been located and described, including examples of turbidites, mafic dikes, sandstones, and the famed Chapel Hill granite that underlies most of the UNC campus. We hope that this study and accompanying booklet will be utilized by the public in and around Chapel Hill and hopefully will spark interest in the fascinating geologic history of our area.