The South Holston Project

Detailed Geology of the south holston site

Stratigraphy: Only four geologic formations are directly involved in the South.
Holston project, and all of them belong to the Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician systems.
Older and younger rocks occur in the region, but they are well outside the dam site and reservoir
area. All formations in the area outcrop in a series of roughly parallel belts of northeast-southwets
trend.
Tellico formation.- The Tellico formation, of middle Ordovician age, is the youngest formation in
the project area. It consists of lenses and beds of sandstone, shale, and conglomerate, and
includes all rock in the dam site and contiguous areas. The shale content of the formation varies
from 6 to 71 percent and is irregularly distributed between the sandstone members in beds from a
fraction of an inch to 60 feet or more thick. In the unweathered state the shale is dark bluishgray
to balck, somewhat sotf, fissile, and calcareous. On weathering, it breaks down rapidly into soft,
loose, yellow to buff splinters and chips. The fresh sandstone is hard and bluish-gray. It consists of
about 25 percent calcium carbonate cementing material and about 60 percent water-worn quartz
sand with small percentages of numerous other minerals. The conglomerate beds and lenses
consist of pebbles and cobbles of limestone, sandstone, and chert well cemented in a matrix of
calcareous sandstone. Both the sandstone and conglomerate are posure to give a fair number of
outcrops, but the shale is rarely found in an undisturbed condition in natural outcrops. In this area
the Tellico is a deltaic deposit, which accounts for the irregular lenticular arrangemet of the shale,
sandstone, and conglomerate members, The total thickness if the Tellico in the locality is uncertain
as measerements are extremely difficult to obtain because of the degree to which the strata are
deformed. Various estimates, ranging up to 10,000 feet, have been made of the thickness in the
South Holston area.
Athens shale.- The Athens shale is perhaps the most widespread geoogic formation in the South
Holston area, occurring in several belts in the vicinity. The dam is located on one of the largest of
these belts, and the Athens outcrops on either side of the flod in belts northeast and southwest of
the dam