Callan Bentley We just looked at the Chilhowee Group, a package of sediments that records the transition for the North American mid-Atlantic from Iapetan rifting through to passive margin sedimentation associated with the Sauk Sea transgression. Well, if we journey a bit further west, we see the sedimentary stack isn’t done telling its story. The saga continues … Read more
…So where were we? Ahh, yes: an orogeny, and then some rifting. What happened next to Virginia and West Virginia? Let’s consult the column… After the rifting event opened up the Iapetus Ocean, seafloor spreading took place and tacked fresh oceanic crust onto the margin of the ancestral North American continent. As North America (“Laurentia”) … Read more
The Grenville Orogeny, responsible for Virginia’s basement complex, was one mountain-building event among many that helped put together a Mesoproterozoic supercontinent called Rodinia. But Rodinia didn’t last: it broke apart during the Neoproterozoic to form the Iapetus Ocean basin. This rifting event is recorded in Virginia’s Blue Ridge province in the Swift Run Formation and … Read more
From the basement complex, the next unit up in the Blue Ridge province’s stratigraphic sequence is the Swift Run Formation. It rests atop an erosional unconformity. After the Grenville Orogeny (~1.1 Ga) added a swath of new crust along the margin of the North American continent, the landscape began to weather and erode. Eventually, an … Read more
It is time to debrief the post-NE/SE-GSA field trip that I went on, affectionately dubbed the “Transect Trip” for the past 27 iPhone-uploaded “live”-geoblogged posts. First off, I’d have to say that I enjoyed the live-field-blogging experiment overall, though I’ve got some critiques of the process and products. I think it’s amazing that I can … Read more
Over on the far right by Chuck Bailey (yellow shirt) you can see the crescent-shaped profile of a river channel (gray color). To the left of that, you can see levee deposits, and beyond that (to the left) crevasse splay deposits and the floodplain (dark red mudstones). This is in the Hampshire Formation, part of … Read more
Here we are in the Brallier Formation, a Devonian turbidite sequence. Prominent in the middle of this photo is the Bouma “C” horizon with the cross- bedding.
This one is also from the Millboro Formation: itty bitty brachs (not too much oxygen in those depths for building up big body sizes) that have been sheared during Alleghanian deformation.
This photo is from the Millboro Formation: mostly deep water black shale, but with the occasional heavy turbidite coursing in and settling its bulk down on the squishy mud beneath. Some folks on our trip suggested these might be seismites: soft sediment deformation resulting from earthquake-induced vibration.
Nice set of twist hackles on the fringe of this joint face:
Oriskany sandstone, folded into an S-fold, then snapped down the middle!
Hoo-hoo! An anticline in the hanging wall of a thrust fault in the Valley & Ridge. This is the redbeds of the latest-Ordovician Juniata Formation. Lynn Fichter for scale.
This is a nice sample of slicks. On the other side, burrows! I like that: a primary structure on one face, a secondary structure on the opposite side.
Looking north along the Germany Valley, which lies in the core of a breached plunging anticline. The topography is defined by the erosion-resistant ridge of Tuscarora Sandstone. This is the Wills Mountain Anticline. The Tuscarora is Silurian; at the bottom of the valley (core of the anticline), you find Ordovician carbonates.
Fault-duplicated double section of the (Silurian aged) erosion-resistant Tuscarora Sandstone:
Sweet hackles on the right; pen for scale.
Radiating out from the greatest sense of scale EVER!
Nice one! … In spite of the highway department graffiti… Swiss Army Knife for scale!
Where are some ripple marks in the Hampshire Formation. Cell phone service is a lot more localized here in West Virginia, so we’ll see how many posts I manage today…
What do you think, folks? Do you like seeing field photos as I take them? Should I continue the Transect Trip instant photoblog series tomorrow as we traverse the Valley & Ridge?