Old Port Formation Stratigraphic range: Early Devonian | |
---|---|
Type | sedimentary |
Unit of | Helderberg Group |
Sub-units | Ridgeley, Shriver, Mandata, Corriganville, and New Creek Members |
Underlies | Onondaga Formation |
Overlies | Keyser Formation |
Thickness | 150 to 190 ft (Mifflintown Quadrangle in PA) [1] |
Lithology | |
Primary | limestone, sandstone |
Other | chert, shale |
Location | |
Region | Appalachian Mountains |
Extent | Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia |
Type section | |
Named by | Conlin and Hoskins, 1962 [1] |
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. [2] Current nomenclature usage by U.S. Geological Survey restricts the name Old Port Formation to Pennsylvania, but correlative units are present in adjacent states. [3]
The Old Port Formation consists of limestone, sandstone, shale, and chert.
The Old Port Formation is divided into several members with varying lithologies, which are (in ascending stratigraphic order): New Creek Member (limestone), Corriganville Member (limestone), Mandata Member (shale), Shriver Member (cherty limestone), and Ridgeley Member (sandstone). Where the Shriver Chert does not occur it may be replaced by the Licking Creek Limestone. [4] It was originally combined from the Helderberg Group and Oriskany Group by Conlin and Hoskins in 1962 to form a single Formation with the above members. [1]
The Ridgeley Member was first described as a member of the Oriskany Formation by Swartz and others (1913), as a calcareous sandstone which passes into an arenaceous limestone. [5] It is still mapped as part of the Oriskany Group in New Jersey. [6]
The type locality is at the town of Ridgeley, Mineral County, West Virginia. [5]
The sandstone of the Ridgeley Member has been extensively mined due to its very pure quartz suitable for glass. The glass derived from the sandstone was used for lenses on the Hubble Space Telescope. [7]
A separate formation, the Oriskany Sandstone, is a lateral equivalent of the Ridgeley Member, but bounded above and below by unconformities.
The Shriver Member, or Shriver Chert, was first described as a member of the Oriskany Formation by Swartz and others (1913), as dark siliceous shale with much black impure chert in nodules or layers of nodules. [5] It is named after Shriver Ridge (the type locality), Allegany County, Maryland, and was originally mapped as the basal unit of the Oriskany Formation.
In Maryland and West Virginia, the Shriver is mapped as part of the Helderberg Group. [8]
In central Pennsylvania it is mapped as part of the Old Port Formation. [9]
In New Jersey it is mapped as the middle unit of the Oriskany Group. [6]
The Mandata Shale of the Helderberg Group was first introduced by F. M. Swartz in 1938, [10] mainly with reference to the overlying Licking Creek Limestone. The type locality is about 0.25 miles south of Mandata, Pennsylvania, on Route 225.
The Corriganville Limestone was first described by J. W. Head in 1972 as part of the Helderberg Group in Allegany County, Maryland, as a gray limestone with chert. [11] C. R. Wood first mapped it as part of the Old Port Formation in Pennsylvania. [12]
The type locality is a railroad cut 0.3 mi southeast of Corriganville, Alleghany County, Maryland. [11]
The New Creek Member was first described by Bowen only as a limestone that is replaced by the Elbow Ridge Sandstone near Hancock, Maryland. [13] Bowen later described it as a massive limestone overlying the Keyser Formation. [14] C. R. Wood first mapped it as part of the Old Port Formation in Pennsylvania. [12]
The Licking Creek Limestone of the Helderberg Group was first introduced by F. M. Swartz in 1938, [10] and was described more fully in 1939. [15] The unit consists of layers and nodules of black chert interbedded with light-gray crystalline limestone. The type locality is a bluff on the south side of Licking Creek, about one mile east of Warren Point, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
See also type localities listed in subsections above.
Brachiopods are occasionally abundant (as casts) in the Ridgeley Member.
The brachiopods Costispirifer arenosus, Beachia immatura, Leptocoelia flabellites, Metaplasia paucicostata, Plicoplasia tribuarius, and Chonetes hudsonicus are present in the Shriver Member around the type locality of Shriver Ridge. [5] Ostracods are also present in the Shriver Member. [18] [19]
Relative age dating of the Old Port places it in the Lower Devonian period. It rests conformably atop the Keyser Formation and usually unconformably below the Needmore Formation [21] or below the Onondaga Formation.
Shallow marine.
The Ridgeley Member is mined extensively in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Bald Eagle Mountain – once known locally as Muncy Mountain – is a stratigraphic ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of central Pennsylvania, United States, running east of the Allegheny Front and northwest of Mount Nittany. It lies along the southeast side of Bald Eagle Creek and south of the West Branch Susquehanna River, and is the westernmost ridge in its section of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. The ridge line separates the West Branch Susquehanna Valley from the Nippenose and White Deer Hole valleys, and Bald Eagle Valley from Nittany Valley.
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.
Bedford County, Pennsylvania is situated along the western border of the Ridge and Valley physiographic province, which is characterized by folded and faulted sedimentary rocks of early to middle Paleozoic age. The northwestern border of the county is approximately at the Allegheny Front, a geological boundary between the Ridge and Valley Province and the Allegheny Plateau.
The Ordovician Reedsville Formation is a mapped surficial bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee, that extends into the subsurface of Ohio. This rock is a slope-former adjacent to the prominent ridge-forming Bald Eagle sandstone unit in the Appalachian Mountains. It is often abbreviated Or on geologic maps.
Wills Creek Formation is a mapped Silurian bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The Hamilton Group is a Devonian-age geological group in the Appalachian region of the United States. It is present in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, northwestern Virginia and Ontario, Canada. It is mainly composed of marine shale with some sandstone. There are two main formations encompassed by the group: the Mahantango Formation and the Marcellus Shale. In southwestern Virginia, where the two sub-units are not easily distinguishable, the Hamilton Group is broadly equivalent to the Millboro Shale or Millboro Formation. The group is named for the village of Hamilton, New York. These rocks are the oldest strata of the Devonian gas shale sequence.
The Devonian Mahantango Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. It is named for the North branch of the Mahantango Creek in Perry and Juniata counties in Pennsylvania. It is a member of the Hamilton Group, along with the underlying the Marcellus Formation Shale. South of Tuscarora Mountain in south central Pennsylvania, the lower members of this unit were also mapped as the Montebello Formation. 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.
The Marcellus Formation or the Marcellus Shale is a Middle Devonian age unit of sedimentary rock found in eastern North America. Named for a distinctive outcrop near the village of Marcellus, New York, in the United States, it extends throughout much of the Appalachian Basin.
The Lock Haven Formation is a Devonian mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States.
The Late Silurian to Early Devonian Keyser Formation is a mapped limestone bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The Devonian Scherr Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
The Devonian Foreknobs Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The Rockwell Formation is a late Devonian and early Mississippian mapped bedrock unit in West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, in the United States.
The Devonian Needmore Formation or Needmore Shale is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The Devonian Brallier Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.
The Ridgeley sandstone is a sandstone or quartzite of Devonian age found in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia, United States. The Ridgeley is fine-grained, siliceous, calcareous in its lower strata, sometimes fossiliferous, and sometimes locally pebbly or conglomeritic. Varying in thickness from 12 to 500 feet, this rock slowly erodes into white quartz sand that often washes or blows away, but sometimes accumulates at large outcrops. When freshly broken, the rock is white, but outcrop surfaces are often stained yellowish by iron oxides.
The Becraft Formation is a geologic formation of marine sedimentary rock found in New York State. The Becraft is a part of the lower Devonian Helderberg Group and conformably overlies the New Scotland Formation and is overlain by the Alsen Formation throughout the lower Hudson Valley of New York State. The formation is Gedinnian in age. Outcrops of the formation are found from the New York-New Jersey border to the Helderbergs of Albany County, New York and as far west as Schoharie County, New York. The thickness of the formation varies from around 3 meters in Canajoharie to 8 meters thick in Albany and swells to 27 meters near Kingston. The Becraft Formation is named for Becraft Mountain in western Columbia County, New York where it prominently crops out.
The Oriskany Sandstone is a Middle Devonian age unit of sedimentary rock found in eastern North America. The type locality of the unit is located at Oriskany Falls in New York. The Oriskany Sandstone extends throughout much of the Appalachian Basin.
The Waynesboro Formation is a limestone, dolomite, and sandstone geologic formation in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It some areas it is composed of limestone and dolomite. The Waynsboro Formation is one of the formations that make up the Shenandoah Valley. It dates back to the Cambrian period and is not considered fossiliferous.
The Huntersville Chert or Huntersville Formation is a Devonian geologic formation in the Appalachian region of the United States. It is primarily composed of mottled white, yellow, and dark grey chert, and is separated from the underlying Oriskany Sandstone by an unconformity. The Huntersville Chert is laterally equivalent to the Needmore Shale, which lies north of the New River. It is also laterally equivalent to a sandy limestone unit which is often equated with the Onondaga Limestone. These formations are placed in the Onesquethaw Stage of Appalachian chronostratigraphy, roughly equivalent to the Emsian and Eifelian stages of the broader Devonian system.