Scherr Formation | |
---|---|
Stratigraphic range: Late Devonian | |
Type | sedimentary |
Unit of | Greenland Gap Group |
Sub-units | Minnehaha Springs Member |
Underlies | Foreknobs Formation |
Overlies | Brallier Formation |
Thickness | 1,004 ft (306 m) at type section |
Lithology | |
Primary | Shale |
Other | Siltstone |
Location | |
Region | Appalachian Mountains |
Extent | Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia |
Type section | |
Named for | Scherr, West Virginia |
Named by | J. M. Dennison, 1970 |
The Devonian Scherr Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
The Scherr Formation consists predominantly of siltstone and shale. Lower part of unit includes considerable fine-grained sandstone, while upper two thirds contains almost no sandstone. It weathers light olive gray. [1]
Dennison (1970) renamed the old Chemung Formation the Greenland Gap Group and divided it into the lower Scherr Formation and the upper Foreknobs Formation. De Witt (1974) extended the Scherr and Foreknobs into Pennsylvania but did not use the term Greenland Gap Group. [2]
Boswell et al. (1987), does not recognize the Scherr and Foreknobs Formations in the subsurface of West Virginia, and thus, these formations are reduced from "group" to "formation" as the Greenland Gap Formation. [3]
The Minnehaha Springs Member is a "clastic bundle" consisting of interbedded medium gray siltstone and olive-gray shale with some grayish-red siltstone and shale and some sandstone. It is interpreted as turbidites. [4] This same member is proposed to exist at the base of the Scherr's lateral equivalent, the Lock Haven Formation. [5]
Relative age dating places the Scherr in the late Devonian.
The Scherr Formation is the likely origin of the trace fossil Thinopus , which was described in 1896 by Othniel Charles Marsh as the earliest known tetrapod (land vertebrate). Later research, however, identified this fossil as coprolites (fossilized feces) of fishes. [6]
Scherr is an unincorporated community in Grant County, West Virginia, United States. The community's name is pronounced like "sheer." Scherr lies to the west of the community of Greenland at the crossroads of West Virginia Route 42, West Virginia Route 93, and U.S. Route 48. Scherr is home to a rock quarry, asphalt plant, and a small country store.
The San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin located near the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. The basin covers 7,500 square miles and resides in northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and parts of Utah and Arizona. Specifically, the basin occupies space in the San Juan, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and McKinley counties in New Mexico, and La Plata and Archuleta counties in Colorado. The basin extends roughly 100 miles (160 km) N-S and 90 miles (140 km) E-W.
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.
The Ordovician Martinsburg Formation (Om) is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. It is named for the town of Martinsburg, West Virginia for which it was first described. It is the dominant rock formation of the Great Appalachian Valley in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
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 which is located in the Appalachian region of the United States. It is present in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, northwestern Virginia and Ontario, Canada, and is mainly composed of marine shale with some sandstone.
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 Huntley Mountain Formation is a late Devonian and early Mississippian mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, in the United States.
The Lock Haven Formation is a Devonian mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States.
The Bedford Shale is a shale geologic formation in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia in the United States.
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.
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 Glenshaw Formation is a mapped sedimentary bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio, of Pennsylvanian age. It is the lower of two formations in the Conemaugh Group, the upper being the Casselman Formation. The boundary between these two units is the top of the marine Ames Limestone. The Conemaugh Group overlies the Upper Freeport coal bed of the Allegheny Formation and underlies the Pittsburgh coal seam of the Monongahela Group.
The Devonian Brallier Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.
The Devonian Harrell Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.
The Bluefield Formation is a geologic formation in West Virginia. It preserves fossils dating back to the Mississippian subperiod of the Carboniferous period. Sediments of this age formed along a large marine basin lying in the region of what is now the Appalachian Plateau. The Bluefield Formation is the lowest section of the primarily siliciclastic Mauch Chunk Group, underlying the Stony Gap Sandstone Member of the Hinton Formation and overlying the limestone-rich Greenbrier Group.
The Elbert Formation is a geologic formation that crops out in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. The formation contains fossils indicating it is upper Devonian in age.