Mark W Carter
Biography
Mark Wayne Carter has been a professional geologist for 22 years. 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 the USGS National Cooperative Mapping Program project "Geologic Framework for Seismic Hazards in Central Virginia and eastern US: Targeted Geologic Mapping and Synthesis" since 2014 and is transitioning in 2018 to mapping in the eastern Piedmont in southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina for critical minerals and aggregate resources.
Science and Products
Piedmont and Blue Ridge Project
The Piedmont and Blue Ridge Project is a geologic mapping project supported by the USGS National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program. The Piedmont Blue Ridge Project aims to understand the geologic framework and tectonic evolution of terranes and basins in the Appalachian Piedmont and Blue Ridge, and their significance for water, mineral and energy resources, natural hazards, and engineering/...
Piedmont Geology Along the Southeastern Fall Zone, Virginia and North Carolina
This task within the USGS NCGMP Piedmont-Blue Ridge Project aims to fill the void in geologic map coverage along the Fall Zone in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, and forge strong cooperative ties within the NCGMP by combining resources across all three Program components by supporting DMME and NCGS STATEMAP and UNC–W EDMAP components with targeted geologic mapping and...
Geologic Framework for Seismic Hazards in Central Virginia
The Central Virginia seismic zone (CVSZ) comprises an area of ~13,000 km2 in the central Virginia Piedmont; seismicity in this zone is relatively frequent, but generally mild in magnitude. The August 2011 event was the largest temblor recorded in the CVSZ since the development of modern seismic monitoring and highlighted how little we actually know about the CVSZ, including: 1) the...
River terrace evidence of tectonic processes in the eastern North American plate interior, South Anna River, Virginia
We show that long-recognized seismicity in the central Virginia seismic zone (CVSZ) of the eastern North American (ENAM) intraplate setting arises primarily from tectonic processes predicted by new, fully coupled plate tectonic geodynamic models. The study leverages much new geophysical and geologic data following the 2011 Mineral, VA earthquake...
Pazzaglia, Frank J.; Malenda, Helen F.; McGavick, Matthew L.; Raup, Cody; Carter, Mark W.; Berti, Claudio; Mahan, Shannon A.; Nelson, Michelle S.; Rittenour, Tammy M.; Counts, Ron; Willenbring, Jane K; Germanoski, Dru; Peters, Stephen C.; Holt, William D. Foreward: Geology Field Trips in and around the U.S. Capital
The first annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) was held in 1888 in Ithaca, New York (Fairchild, 1932), but official Sections of GSA formed much later. During the spring of 1949, a symposium in Knoxville, Tennessee, on mineral resources of the southeastern United States became the catalyst for the creation of the Southeastern...
Swezey, Christopher S.; Carter, Mark W.
Geochronologic age constraints on tectonostratigraphic units of the central Virginia Piedmont, USA
New geologic mapping coupled with uranium-lead (U-Pb) zircon geochronology (sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe-reverse geometry [SHRIMP-RG] and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry [LA-ICP-MS]) analyses of 10 samples, provides new constraints on the tectonostratigraphic framework of the central Virginia Piedmont....
Carter, Mark W.; McAleer, Ryan J.; Holm-Denoma, Christopher S.; Spears, David B.; Regan, Sean P.; Burton, William C.; Evans, Nick H.
Paleoliquefaction field reconnaissance in eastern North Carolina—Is there evidence for large magnitude earthquakes between the central Virginia seismic zone and Charleston seismic zone?
In June 2016, approximately 64 kilometers (km) of riverbank were examined along the Tar and Neuse Rivers near Tarboro and Kinston, North Carolina, for evidence of liquefaction-forming earthquakes. The study area is in the vicinity of the Grainger’s fault zone in eastern North Carolina. The Grainger’s fault zone is a fault zone in the inner Coastal...
Carter, Mark W.; McLaurin, Brett T. Geology of the Cornwall Quadrangle, Virginia
No abstract available.
Heller, Matthew J.; Carter, Mark W.; Wilkes, G.P.; Coiner, R.L. The Appalachian Geo-STEM Camp: Learning about geology through experiential adventure recreation
The inaugural Appalachian Geo-STEM Camp (AGC) was a partnership between West Virginia University (WVU), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey (WVGES). Designed to engage high school students in geoscience-oriented Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) activities through adventure-...
Burns, Robert; Carter, Mark W.; Brock, John; Leveque, Jonas; Bunse, Emily; Palaseanu-Lovejoy, Monica; Guala, Gerald F.; Harlan, Nathan; Blake, Mitchel; Moreira, Jasmine; Britton, Jim; Ashton, Kenny; Nugent, Barnes; Marketti, Michael Geology of the Mineral and Lake Anna West Quadrangles, Virginia
This map product is a cooperator series publication and, as such, does not have a specific abstract. Geologic mapping for this map product was completed between 2014 and 2017, with most of the field work occurring between January 2016 and May 2017. Numerous foot traverses were completed along creeks and roads throughout the field area; the shore...
Carter, Mark W.; Burton, William C.; McAleer, Ryan J.; DiGiacomo-Cohen, Mary; Sauer, R. Tyler The significance of dinoflagellates in the Miocene Choptank Formation beneath the Midlothian gravels in the southeastern Virginia Piedmont
The Fall Line (formally "Tidewater Fall Line") separates the more resistant igneous, metamorphic, and consolidated sedimentary rocks of the Piedmont from the typically unconsolidated deposits of the Coastal Plain of Virginia. Widespread but now discontinuous patches of a deeply weathered sand and gravel are found west of the Fall Line, capping the...
Edwards, Lucy E.; Weems, Robert E.; Carter, Mark W.; Spears, David; Powars, David S. Geology along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia
Detailed geologic mapping and new SHRIMP (sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe) U-Pb zircon, Ar/Ar, Lu-Hf, 14C, luminescence (optically stimulated), thermochronology (fission-track), and palynology reveal the complex Mesoproterozoic to Quaternary geology along the ~350 km length of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. Traversing the...
Carter, Mark W.; Southworth, C. Scott; Tollo, Richard P.; Merschat, Arthur J.; Wagner, Sara; Lazor, Ava; Aleinikoff, John N. Geology of the Petersburg batholith, eastern Piedmont, Virginia
The 295-300 Ma Petersburg batholith in east-central Virginia forms one of the largest and northernmost of the Alleghanian plutonic complexes in the southern Appalachian Piedmont. The batholith is primarily composed of granite including massive and foliated (both magmatic and solid-state fabrics) varieties. The plutonic complex intruded medium-...
Owens, Brent E.; Carter, Mark W.; Bailey, Christopher M. Linking the Central and Southern Appalachian Blue Ridge: What We Know and Don’t Know about Stratigraphy, Structure, Tectonism, and Regional Correlation in the Eastern Blue Ridge of Virginia
The transition from Neoproterozoic Lynchburg Group rocks on the eastern limb of the para-autochthonous Blue Ridge anticlinorium in central Virginia to the fault-bounded Ashe Formation and Alligator Back Formation in southern Virginia has been a source of intense debate and speculation for decades. There are fundamental differences in the...
Carter, Mark W.; Merschat, Arthur J.
Centimeter-scale surface deformation caused by the 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake sequence at the Carter farm site—Subsidiary structures with a quaternary history
Centimeter-scale ground-surface deformation was produced by the August 23, 2011, magnitude (M) 5.8 earthquake that occurred in Mineral, Virginia. Ground-surface deformation also resulted from the earthquake aftershock sequence. This deformation occurred along a linear northeast-trend near Pendleton, Virginia. It is approximately 10 kilometers (km...
Harrison, Richard W.; Schindler, J. Stephen; Pavich, Milan J.; Horton, J. Wright; Carter, Mark W.