Reports
Coastal Plain geology of Southern Maryland
1968, Glaser, J.D.
Guidebook 1
Introduction
This guidebook has been prepared for the 9th Annual Field Conference of the Atlantic Coastal Plain Geological Association. Southern Maryland, the area selected for the field trip, has much to recommend it, from both a geologic and an historical point of view. The lower portion of the Southern Maryland peninsula served as a backdrop for the early 17th century explorations of Captain John Smith and bears numerous landmarks of colonial settlement in the New World. The "Cliffs of Calvert", first described by Smith, contain what are perhaps the finest fossiliferous Miocene exposures in the United States and yielded the first American fossil (Ecphora quadricostata) to be figured in a publication (Lister, 1685).
The trip has been arranged to cover representative exposures of Coastal Plain rocks ranging in age from Early Cretaceous to Miocene. In this manner, the participants may best become acquainted with the stratigraphic succession in the Maryland Coastal Plain, and more importantly, with the numerous unresolved problems in deciphering the sedimentological and structural history of the region. Despite the fact that the type areas of many widespread rock stratigraphic units in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain are located in Southern Maryland, only in recent years has intensive study on the part of numerous researchers begun to reveal the details of stratigraphy and structure. Much remains to be done.
