Named for great extent [on Piedmont Plateau] in North and South Carolina. Consists of an immense series of interbedded mica schists, mica gneiss, and fine granitoid layers. Most are light or dark gray, weathering to dull gray and greenish gray. Lenses and veins of pegmatite, and some layers of white granitic material included. That part of Carolina gneiss adjacent to overlying Roan gneiss contains some thin interbedded layers of hornblende gneiss precisely like Roan gneiss, constituting transition between the formations. Carolina gneiss is oldest in the region; both it and Roan are Archean.

Source: GNU records (USGS DDS-6; Reston GNULEX).

Pg. 756, 775-781. Carolina gneiss. Near Kings Mountain, mica schists and gneisses, previously mapped as Carolina gneiss, and hornblende gneisses, previously mapped as Roan gneiss, actually constitute metamorphosed upper part of Gaffney [formation]. Similar rocks in Beaver Creek area are apparently stratigraphically higher. Evidence in other parts of Carolina Piedmont, indicates that intrusive diorite and possibly recrystallized mafic volcanic rocks have been included in the Roan and possibly recrystallized felsic volcanic rocks in the Carolina gneiss. Names Roan and Carolina have lithologic but not stratigraphic significance.

Source: US geologic names lexicon (USGS Bull. 1200, p. 645).

North of Blairsville, GA, Hurricane graywacke (new) is a basal part of Ocoee series that was mapped as Carolina gneiss by LaForge and Phalen (1913).

Source: GNU records (USGS DDS-6; Reston GNULEX).