Tripping from the Fall Line: Field Excursions for the GSA Annual Meeting, Baltimore, 2015

Prepared in conjunction with the 2015 GSA Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, this volume contains guides to field trips in this historic region. Emanating from the Fall Line city of Baltimore, these trips reflect the diversity of geological features in the mid-Atlantic region including the Piedmont, Appalachian Mountains, and Coastal Plain, and the importance of geology on the development and construction of the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Trips to the core of the Appalachian orogen concern themselves with the tectonic and metamorphic history, early Paleozoic carbonate platform development, Devonian paleoclimate, and coal-mine fire hazards. Excursions to the Coastal Plain examine various aspects of Cenozoic stratigraphy, structure, barrier island formation, and wetland and ecosystem development. A variety of trips also explore urban geology, including building and monument stones of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., urban hydrogeology, and Civil War battlefield geology.
Cambrian–Ordovician of the central Appalachians: Correlations and event stratigraphy of carbonate platform and adjacent deep-water deposits Available to Purchase
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Published:January 01, 2015
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CiteCitation
David K. Brezinski, John F. Taylor, John E. Repetski, James D. Loch, 2015. "Cambrian–Ordovician of the central Appalachians: Correlations and event stratigraphy of carbonate platform and adjacent deep-water deposits", Tripping from the Fall Line: Field Excursions for the GSA Annual Meeting, Baltimore, 2015, David K. Brezinski, Jeffrey P. Halka, Richard A. Ortt, Jr.
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Abstract
This trip seeks to illustrate the succession of Cambrian and Ordovician facies deposited within the Pennsylvania and Maryland portion of the Great American Carbonate Bank. From the Early Cambrian (Dyeran) through Late Ordovician (Turinan), the Laurentian paleocontinent was rimmed by an extensive carbonate platform. During this protracted period of time, a succession of carbonate rock, more than two miles thick, was deposited in Maryland and Pennsylvania. These strata are now exposed in the Nittany arch of central Pennsylvania; the Great Valley of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia; and the Conestoga and Frederick Valleys of eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland. This field trip will visit key outcrops that illustrate the varied depositional styles and environmental settings that prevailed at different times within the Pennsylvania reentrant portion of the Great American Carbonate Bank. In particular, we will contrast the timing and pattern of sedimentation in off-shelf (Frederick Valley), outer-shelf (Great Valley), and inner-shelf (Nittany arch) deposits. The deposition was controlled primarily by eustasy through the Cambrian and Early Ordovician (within the Sauk megasequence), but was strongly influenced later by the onset of Taconic orogenesis during deposition of the Tippecanoe megasequence.
- Appalachians
- Cambrian
- carbonate platforms
- Central Appalachians
- Conococheague Formation
- event stratigraphy
- field trips
- lower Paleozoic
- Maryland
- North America
- Ordovician
- paleogeography
- Paleozoic
- Pennsylvania
- regression
- road log
- sea-level changes
- Taconic Orogeny
- transgression
- United States
- Stonehenge Formation
- Elbrook Formation
- Frederick Formation
- Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park
- Monocacy Member
- Monocacy National Battlefield Historical Park