Geochemical data from Ordovician and Silurian mafic rocks in the Wilmington Complex in Delaware, the James Run Formation in Cecil County, Maryland, and the Wissahickon Formation in Delaware and Pennsylvania were collected in conjunction with preparation of a new geologic map of the Delaware-Pennsylvania Piedmont. Although concentrations of most elements may have been disrupted by metamorphism, the more stable high field strength elements, including the rare earth elements (REE), are consistent within mapped lithodemic units and are compared to modern basaltic magmas from relatively well known tectonomagmatic environments.

Our results are similar to those for other Appalachian mafic rocks and suggest a suprasubduction zone tectonic setting for the Wilmington Complex and the James Run Formation in Cecil County, Maryland. Thus, the rocks of the Wilmington Complex plus the James Run Formation in Cecil County may be stages in a continuum that records the temporal magmatic evolution of an arc complex.