Tuscarora Formation
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The Tuscarora Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
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[edit] Description
The Tuscarora is defined as a light to medium-gray sandstone and conglomerate, containing a few shale interbeds.[1] There is one named member of this formation: Castanea, occuring at the top. The Tuscarora is a lateral equivalent of the Minsi and Weiders members of the Shawangunk Formation in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, and of the Massanutten Sandstone in Virginia. The Tuscarora and its lateral equivalents are the primary ridge-formers of the Appalachian Mountains in the northeastern United States.
[edit] Depositional Environment
The Tuscarora has always been intrepreted as molasse resulting from the Taconic orogeny.
[edit] Fossils
Very few fossils exist in the Tuscarora, and most of them are trace fossils.
[edit] Age
Relative age dating of the Tuscarora places it in the Lower Silurian period, being deposited between 440 to 417 (±10) million years ago. It rests conformably atop the Juniata Formation and conformably below the Clinton Group in Pennsylvania.[2]
[edit] Economic Uses
[edit] References
- ^ Berg, T.M., Edmunds, W.E., Geyer, A.R. and others, compilers, (1980). Geologic Map of Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Geologic Survey, Map 1, scale 1:250,000.
- ^ Berg, T.M., et al., (1983). Stratagraphic Correlation Chart of Pennsylvania: G75, Pennsylvania Geologic Survey, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
