Mark W Carter

Mark Wayne Carter has been a professional geologist since 1996.  After an education at Old Dominion University (B.S.) and University of Tennessee, Knoxville (M.S.), Mark began his career in 1996 with the North Carolina Geological Survey in Asheville, mapping throughout the Blue Ridge and parts of the Chauga belt in western North Carolina.  In 2004, Mark moved to the Virginia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources in Charlottesville, expanding his mapping experience with several projects in the eastern Piedmont and inner Coastal Plain provinces near Richmond, as well as in the Virginia Blue Ridge.  Mark came on board with the US Geological Survey in 2009 as a team member of the Eastern Geology and Paleoclimate Science Center, Appalachian Blue Ridge Project, mapping along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.  In 2011, Mark served as local USGS coordinator for USGS response following the Mineral, Virginia earthquake, and has been Project Chief for several USGS National Cooperative Mapping Program projects, including "Geologic Framework for Seismic Hazards in Central Virginia and eastern US: Targeted Geologic Mapping and Synthesis" (2014-2018), “Piedmont Geology along the southeastern Fall Zone, Virginia and North Carolina” (2018-2020), “Piedmont and Blue Ridge” (2020-2024), and is currently Project Chief for the NCGMP “Eastern Piedmont and upper Coastal Plain, Virginia to Georgia” project (2024-present).  Mark is mapping in southeastern Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, and on the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge, Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and parts of Oconee National Forest in central Georgia.  Mark’s geologic mapping efforts combine geochemical, geophysical, LiDAR and numerous geochronologic methods to understand the formation and evolution of the southern Appalachian orogen and its Atlantic Coastal Plain cover, with an emphasis on critical mineral resources and geologic hazards.