the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Geology Clingmans Dome is part of a geological formation known as the Copperhill Formation. It consists predominately of massive, coarse-grained metagreywacke and metaconglomerate. The Lower northern flanks of Clingmans Dome are underlain by thick layers of sulfidic, quartz-garnet-muscovite phyllite and schist, which occur within the metagraywackes and metaconglomerates. Adjacent to and south of its summit, thin, southward-dipping, and discontinuous beds of garnetiferous, locally graphitic and sulfidic, metasiltstone occur within the Copperhill Formation. The Copperhill Formation is part of the greater Ocoee Supergroup, a body of clastic metasedimentary rocks formed 560 million years ago. They unconformably lie upon Precambrian granitic and gneissic rocks. The sediments that originally comprised the Ocoee Supergroup accumulated in a string of narrow, deep-water basins that stretched along the entire southern-central Appalachian margin from Tennessee, North Carolina, to Georgia. These basins were rift basins formed by the rifting of Rodinia. The initial metamorphism of the Ocoee Supergroup occurred about 400 million years ago as the result of Ordovician-Silurian tectonism during the Taconic orogeny. Later, Devonian-Mississippian metamorphism of these strata occurred during the Acadian orogeny and additional Pennsylvanian to Permian alteration by retrograde metamorphism and deformation occurred during the Alleghanian orogeny. During the latest part of this orogeny, this segment of the Appalachian Mountains was formed by thrust faulting and folding that uplifted these strata as a series of complexly deformed thrust sheets. During the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, the gradual uplift and erosion of this part of the Appalachian Mountains has continued. Although a dense forest understory covers most of the mountain, outcroppings of the Copperhill Formation can be found on Clingmans Dome at the Forney Ridge Parking Lot at the end of Clingmans Dome Road. This outcrop exposes massive metaconglomerate of the Copperhill Formation. At this outcrop, it consists of massive thick beds of micaceous quartzite. It contains coarse pebbles of quartz and feldspar, flat pebbles of fine-grained black graywacke, and egg-shaped concretions up to in diameter. These cobble-size concretions are readily eroded by weathering to leave rust-stained depressions or cavities in the metaconglomerate. Soils of Clingmans Dome are mostly moderately deep to shallow, well drained dark brown loam or sandy loam of strong to extreme acidity; Breakneck and Pullback series are most common. Climate The climate of Clingmans Dome is hemiboreal (Köppen Dfb, Trewartha Dcb). As with much of the southern Blue Ridge, the area qualifies as part of the