Huntley Mountain Formation

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Huntley Mountain Formation
Stratigraphic range: Late Devonian to Early Mississippian
Haystacks1 Loyalsock Creek Sullivan Co PA.jpg
The Haystacks of Loyalsock Creek in Laporte Township, Sullivan County, Pennsylvania are a quartzite bed of the Huntley Mountain Formation
Typesedimentary
Underlies Burgoon Sandstone
Lithology
Primarysandstone, shale
Location
Region Appalachian Mountains
ExtentPennsylvania
Type section
Named forHuntley Mountain, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania
Named byBerg and Edmunds, 1978

The Huntley Mountain Formation is a late Devonian and early Mississippian mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, in the United States.

Contents

Description

Outcrop of Huntley Mountain Formation along old railroad bed parallel to Loyalsock Creek north of Laporte, Pennsylvania Huntley Mountain Fm 1.jpg
Outcrop of Huntley Mountain Formation along old railroad bed parallel to Loyalsock Creek north of Laporte, Pennsylvania

The formation is composed of relatively soft grayish-red shale and olive-gray sandstone. It is located in north central Pennsylvania. [1] [2] [3]

Haystacks

The Haystacks are enigmatic mounds of sandstone that outcrop in Loyalsock Creek south of Dushore in Sullivan County. They are a single bed of quartz sandstone with an undulating upper surface with up to one meter relief. The origin of the mounds is debatable. [4]

Notable Exposures

Stratigraphy

Geologist William E. Edmunds argues that the Huntley Mountain Formation is laterally equivalent to the Rockwell Formation (originally described in West Virginia) and the Spechty Kopf Formation. He proposes that the Pocono Formation be reinstated as "the dominantly non-red, non-marine clastic sequence between the Catskill and Mauch Chunk Formations", with the Huntley Mountain, Beckville, Burgoon, Rockwell, Mt. Carbon, and Spechty Kopf Formations demoted to the status of members of the Pocono Formation. [5] Other workers support this interpretation. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sullivan County, Pennsylvania</span> County in Pennsylvania, United States

Sullivan County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,840, making it the second-least populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Laporte. The county was created on March 15, 1847, from part of Lycoming County and named for Major General John Sullivan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worlds End State Park</span> Park in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania

Worlds End State Park is a 780-acre (316 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. The park, nearly surrounded by Loyalsock State Forest, is in the Loyalsock Creek valley on Pennsylvania Route 154 in Forks and Shrewsbury Townships southeast of the borough of Forksville. The name Worlds End has been used since at least 1872, but its origins are uncertain. Although it was founded as Worlds End State Forest Park by Governor Gifford Pinchot in 1932, the park was officially known as Whirls End State Forest Park from 1936 to 1943.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loyalsock Creek</span> River in Pennsylvania, United States

Loyalsock Creek is a 64-mile-long (103 km) tributary of the West Branch Susquehanna River located chiefly in Sullivan and Lycoming counties in Pennsylvania in the United States. As the crow flies, Lycoming County is about 130 miles (209 km) northwest of Philadelphia and 165 miles (266 km) east-northeast of Pittsburgh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiconisco Creek</span>

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Little Pine State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on 2,158 acres (873 ha) in Cummings Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. Little Pine State park is along 4.2 miles (6.8 km) of Little Pine Creek, a tributary of Pine Creek, in the midst of the Tiadaghton State Forest. A dam on the creek has created a lake covering 94 acres (38 ha) for fishing, boating, and swimming. The park is on Pennsylvania Route 4001, 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of the unincorporated village of Waterville or 8 miles (13 km) southwest of the village of English Center. The nearest borough is Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, about 15 miles (24 km) south at the mouth of Pine Creek on the West Branch Susquehanna River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upper Pine Bottom State Park</span> State park in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States

Upper Pine Bottom State Park is a 5-acre (2.0 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The park is in Cummings Township on Pennsylvania Route 44 and is surrounded by the Tiadaghton State Forest. It is on Upper Pine Bottom Run, which gave the park its name and is a tributary of Pine Creek. Upper Pine Bottom State Park is in the Pine Creek Gorge, where the streams have cut through five major rock formations from the Devonian and Carboniferous periods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bloomsburg Formation</span>

The Silurian Bloomsburg Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Maryland. It is named for the town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, in which it was first described. The Bloomsburg marked the first occurrence of red sedimentary rocks in the Appalachian Basin.

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Plunketts Creek is an approximately 6.2-mile-long (10 km) tributary of Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming and Sullivan counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Two unincorporated villages and a hamlet are on the creek, and its watershed drains 23.6 square miles (61 km2) in parts of five townships. The creek is a part of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin via Loyalsock Creek and the West Branch Susquehanna and Susquehanna Rivers.

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The Mississippian Pocono Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia, in the United States. It is also known as the Pocono Group in Maryland and West Virginia, and the upper part of the Pocono Formation is sometimes called the Burgoon Formation or Burgoon Sandstone in Pennsylvania. The Pocono is a major ridge-former In the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the eastern United States

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lock Haven Formation</span>

The Lock Haven Formation is a Devonian mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Port Formation</span>

The Devonian Old Port Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, USA. Details of the type section and of stratigraphic nomenclature for this unit as used by the U.S. Geological Survey are available on-line at the National Geologic Map Database. Current nomenclature usage by U.S. Geological Survey restricts the name Old Port Formation to Pennsylvania, but correlative units are present in adjacent states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waterfalls in Ricketts Glen State Park</span> Waterfalls in Ricketts Glen State Park in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania

There are 24 named waterfalls in Ricketts Glen State Park in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania along Kitchen Creek as it flows in three steep, narrow valleys, or glens. They range in height from 9 feet (2.7 m) to the 94-foot (29 m) Ganoga Falls. Ricketts Glen State Park is named for R. Bruce Ricketts, a colonel in the American Civil War who owned over 80,000 acres in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but spared the old-growth forests in the glens from clearcutting. The park, which opened in 1944, is administered by the Bureau of State Parks of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Nearly all of the waterfalls are visible from the Falls Trail, which Ricketts had built from 1889 to 1893 and which the state park rebuilt in the 1940s and late 1990s. The Falls Trail has been called "the most magnificent hike in the state" and one of "the top hikes in the East".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keyser Formation</span>

The Late Silurian to Early Devonian Keyser Formation is a mapped limestone bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rockwell Formation</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Shamokin Creek</span> River

Little Shamokin Creek is a 15.0-mile-long (24.1 km) tributary of Shamokin Creek and a sub-tributary of the Susquehanna River in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The watershed of the creek has an area of 37 square miles, spread out over Upper Augusta Township, Lower Augusta Township, Rockefeller Township, and Shamokin Township. The creek's watershed contains four rock formations. These are the Hamilton Group, the Spechty Kopf formation, the Irish Valley formation, and the Buddy Run formation. The watershed also contains three main soil types. They are the Berks-Weikert-Bedington series, the Leck Kill-Meckesville-Calvin series and the Hazelton-Dekalb-Buchanan series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon Creek</span> River of the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania

Solomon Creek is a tributary of the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately 8.8 miles (14.2 km) long and flows through Fairview Township, Hanover Township, and Wilkes-Barre. The creek is affected by acid mine drainage and has significant loads of iron, aluminum, and manganese. The creek's named tributaries are Spring Run, Sugar Notch Run, and Pine Creek. The Solomon Creek watershed is located in the Anthracite Valley section of the ridge-and-valley geographical province. Major rock formations in the watershed include the Mauch Chunk Formation, the Spechty Kopf Formation, and the Catskill Formation.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nescopeck Mountain</span> Ridge in Columbia and Luzerne Counties, Pennsylvania

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Mountain</span> Mountain in northeastern Pennsylvania, United States

Central Mountain is a mountain in Columbia County, Sullivan County, and Luzerne County, in Pennsylvania, United States. Its elevation is 2,247 feet (685 m) above sea level. The mountain is part of the Allegheny Front. Rock formations on the mountain include the Pocono Formation and the Duncannon Member of the Catskill Formation. It was historically known as North Mountain, but it was renamed Central Mountain in the late 1800s. The mountain is one of the most important sites on the Columbia County Natural Areas Inventory and it is inhabited by dozens of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. Numerous birds and several amphibians and mammals are also found in the area.

References

  1. Berg, T.M. (1981). "Atlas of Preliminary Geologic Quadrangle Maps of Pennsylvania: Eagles Mere" (PDF). Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 24, 2003. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  2. "Map 67: Tabloid Edition Explanation" (PDF). Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 25, 2009.
  3. Royer, Denise W. "Pennsylvania Trail of Geology, Worlds End State Park, Sullivan County, Geologic Features of Interest (Park Guide 12)" (PDF). Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 30, 2004. Retrieved 2007-08-28.
  4. The Haystacks, "Ricketts Folly," and The End of the World: Geology of the Glaciated Allegheny High Plateau, Sullivan, Luzerne, and Columbia Counties, Pennsylvania, 71st Annual Field Conference of Pennsylvania Geologists (field trip guide book), J. D. Inners, G. M. Fleeger, eds., 2006
  5. Edmunds, William E (1996). "Correlation Chart showing Suggested Revisions of Uppermost Devonian through Permian Stratigraphy, Pennsylvania" (PDF). Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Geological Survey, Fourth Series. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 24, 2005. Retrieved 2008-06-03.
  6. Lessing, Peter, Dean, S.L., and Kulander, B.R., 1992, Stratigraphy and structure of Meadow Branch synclinorium, West Virginia: Southeastern Geology, v. 32, no. 3, p. 166-174.

See also