Field Excursions to the Appalachian Plateaus and the Valley and Ridge for GSA Connects 2023
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This volume offers guides for GSA Connects 2023 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, that cover a diverse range of geologic time and processes from the Paleozoic to Recent. Chapters address Paleozoic and Pleistocene glaciation; the interplay of geology and climate in shaping the landscape; and aspects of cultural geology, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and the setting of Youngstown, Ohio, USA.
Post-glacial tectonism and bluff erosion in northern Erie County, Pennsylvania, USA
*Corresponding author:[email protected]; present address: NASA Headquarters, Science Mission Directorate, Planetary Science Division, 300 E St SW, Washington, D.C., 20546, USA.
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Published:September 25, 2023
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CiteCitation
Nicholas P. Lang*, Christopher Dolanc, Kennedy Beasley-Watson, Katie Goodenow, Kiana Harris, Albert Jackson, Joseph McCarthy, Cole Nypaver, Nicole Schwab, Trevor Wood, 2023. "Post-glacial tectonism and bluff erosion in northern Erie County, Pennsylvania, USA", Field Excursions to the Appalachian Plateaus and the Valley and Ridge for GSA Connects 2023, Brett T. McLaurin
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ABSTRACT
This one-day field trip will visit northern Erie County in northwestern Pennsylvania, USA, and is divided into two parts. The first part will highlight brittle and ductile deformation preserved in Upper Devonian bedrock. It is possible that this deformation occurred in relation to the Alleghenian orogeny during the late Paleozoic. However, some of this deformation displays possible evidence of postdating Wisconsin glaciation, but this interpretation is speculative and based largely on possible topographic disruption of Quaternary river terrace deposits. Morphologic characteristics of outcrops in creeks that expose these tectonic structures will be used as a starting point to discuss structure origin, timing, and their implications. The second part of the trip will visit Erie Bluffs State Park (EBSP) and will examine ongoing mass wasting of bluffs along the southern Lake Erie shoreline. The timing (as determined from dendrochronological analyses) and styles of mass wasting that have occurred at EBSP will be discussed and compared to two other locations along Pennsylvania’s Lake Erie shoreline. An appended road log serves as a geologic guide to the features and processes highlighted on this trip.
- Alleghany Orogeny
- anticlines
- bluffs
- brittle deformation
- Cenozoic
- coastal environment
- deformation
- Devonian
- ductile deformation
- Erie County Pennsylvania
- erosion
- faults
- field trips
- folds
- fractures
- guidebook
- joints
- mass movements
- neotectonics
- Paleozoic
- Pennsylvania
- Quaternary
- reverse faults
- road log
- style
- tectonics
- tree rings
- United States
- Upper Devonian
- Venango Formation
- Chadakoin Formation
- Girard Shale
- Northeast Shale
- Erie Bluffs State Park