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.
Holocene barrier-island geology and morphodynamics of the Maryland and Virginia open-ocean coasts: Fenwick, Assateague, Chincoteague, Wallops, Cedar, and Parramore Islands
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Published:January 01, 2015
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CiteCitation
Randolph A. McBride, Michael S. Fenster, Christopher T. Seminack, Trent M. Richardson, Julie M. Sepanik, J. Thomas Hanley, Joshua A. Bundick, Elizabeth Tedder, 2015. "Holocene barrier-island geology and morphodynamics of the Maryland and Virginia open-ocean coasts: Fenwick, Assateague, Chincoteague, Wallops, Cedar, and Parramore Islands", 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 four-day field trip will include 21 field stops along a 105-km reach of Maryland’s and Virginia’s barrier-island coast along the Delmarva Peninsula. Along the way, we will cover aspects of barrier-island and nearshore geology and of barrier-island and backbarrier marsh process-response morphodynamic systems in two hydrodynamic settings: (1) the wave-dominated Assateague Island along the northern Delmarva Peninsula and (2) the mixed-energy Virginia barrier islands along the southern Delmarva Peninsula. We will also examine anthropogenic impacts on barrier-island systems at Ocean City Inlet, Maryland, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Wallops Island, Virginia.
- barrier islands
- Cenozoic
- coastal environment
- Delmarva Peninsula
- effects
- field trips
- geomorphology
- Holocene
- landform evolution
- lower Holocene
- Maryland
- ocean circulation
- paleoclimatology
- paleogeography
- processes
- Quaternary
- road log
- sea-level changes
- tides
- United States
- Virginia
- Assateague Island
- Chincoteague Island
- Parramore Island
- Wallops Island
- Cedar Island
- Fenwick Island