Abstract
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title> <jats:p>The detritus eroded from large mountain belts provides an opportunity to develop spatially integrated records of tectonic processes and proxies including magmatism, metamorphism, deformation, uplift, and sediment delivery and accommodation. This is especially valuable for ancient mountain belts that have been deeply denuded. Here, I present a compilation of U-Pb detrital-zircon ages younger than 800 Ma from the Ordovician–Permian Appalachian foreland basin and the modern inner continental shelf of North America’s South Atlantic Bight to constrain the magmatic history of the development of the southern Appalachians and Pangea. I compare these results with the surface area exposures of dated intermediate and felsic plutons in the Blue Ridge and Piedmont geomorphic provinces of the southern Appalachians. These data reveal apparent pulses of magmatism ca. 480–390 Ma and ca. 340–290 Ma, as well as significant differences in the current zircon geochronologic records of the continental shelf, foreland basin, and the plutons. Namely, continental shelf zircons record a ca. 340–290 Ma magmatic history that is largely absent from the foreland basin record, and continental shelf and foreland basin records reveal a more continuous record of magmatism than indicated by the current geochronology of the plutons themselves. Together, these compilations should be useful for reconstructing not only the history of magmatism associated with southern Appalachian development, but also the landscape dynamics of one of Earth’s most significant mountain belts. Moreover, U-Pb detrital-zircon records may be more useful than direct dating of currently exposed plutonic rocks in reconstructing the history of Appalachian magmatism. This approach could be useful in other orogens as well.</jats:p>