The Craggy Mountain Wilderness Study Area includes about 550 hectares of steep forested ridges in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. An adjoining 518 hectares called the Craggy Mountain Extension has been added along the west side of the original area. The combined areas include the upper drainage basin of Carter Creek above the mouth of Peach Orchard Creek and the east half of the Mineral Creek drainage basin on the steep western slope of the Great Craggy Mountains in the Pisgah National Forest in Buncombe County. Bedrock is mostly mica-garnet schist, much of which contains kyanite, interlayered with quartz-biotite gneiss; a few layers of amphibolite and a few dikes of trondhjemite and granitic pegmatite are poorly exposed near the study area.
No metallic mineral resources have been identified in or near the study area. Reconnaissance geochemical surveys, including analyses of stream sediments, soil, rock samples, and panned concentrates, show no obvious anomalous values for 30 elements.
Kyanite and garnet in the mica schist are considered hypothetical submarginal resources, the kyanite for refractory use and the byproduct garnet for abrasive use.
Most of the rock types are suitable for use as crushed stone or rough building stone;
however, adequate resources of stone are available in the general area in more favorable locations.
Natural gas may possibly be present at great depth. Includes one plate (27"x29"). By F.G. Lesure and A.E. Grosz, USGS and B.B. Williams and G.C. Gazdik, US Bureau of Mines, 1982. 27 pages.
|
