Reedsville Formation

The Ordovician Reedsville Formation (Or) is a mapped bedrock unit in central Pennsylvania that extends into the subsurface of Ohio. This rock is a slope-former adjacent (and stratigraphically below) to the prominent ridge-forming Bald Eagle sandstone unit in the Appalachian Mountains.

Description

The Reedsville Formation is an Olive-gray to dark-gray siltstone, shale, and fine-grainded sandstone. [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.] In Central Pennsylvania along the Nittany Arch, and extending into the subsurface of northern West Virginia, the base of the Reedsville formation includes the black calcareous Antes Shale formation. [cite map|url=http://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i-2264/IMAP_2264.pdf|publisher=U.S. Geological Survey|author=Robert T. Ryder|year=1991|title=Stratigraphic Framework of Cambrian and Ordovician Rocks in the Central Appalachian Basin From Richland County, Ohio, To Rockingham County, Virginia]

Age

Relative age dating of the Reedsville places it in the Upper Ordovician period. It rests conformably atop the Upper Ordovician Coburn Formation at the top of the Trenton Group limestone and conformably below the Bald Eagle Formation. [cite web |url=http://www.geosc.psu.edu/news/features/gold/skytop.html |title= Geological Report on the Skytop Road Cuts |accessdate=2008-01-26 |author = Gold, David P. and Doden, Arnold G. |work=Geosciences: Feature Article|publisher=Pennsylvania State University College of Earth and Mineral Sciences ]

Economic Uses

The Reedsville is quarried locally in borrow pits for road material and fill.cite paper|url=http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/openfile/mcalevysfort.pdf|format=pdf|author= Doden, Arnold G. and Gold, David P.|year=2008|title=Bedrock Geologic Map of The Mc Alevys Fort Quadrangle, Huntingdon, Centre, and Mifflin Counties, Pennsylvania|publisher=Pennsylvania Geological Survey]

References

ee also

*Geology of Pennsylvania