Reports
Carbonate ramps and reefs: Paleozoic stratigraphy and paleontology of Western Maryland
1996, Brezinski, D.K.
Guidebook 6
Introduction
The purpose of this trip is to make a traverse through the Valley and Ridge Province of Maryland, and examine a number of the formations to illustrate the diversity of depositional environments and faunas present in the Lower and Middle Paleozoic rocks of the central Appalachians (Figure 1).
At the first stop we will examine the Middle Ordovician St. Paul Group and the overlying Chambersburg Limestone. These units record the transition from Middle Ordovician shallow ramp/platform environments to deep water ramp deposition at the onset of the Taconic orogeny. At the second stop you will be able to examine both ramp carbonates of the Upper Silurian-Lower Devonian Keyser Formation and the white, fossiliferous, beach/barrier bar sequence of the Ridgley Formation of the Oriskany Group. The third stop will be at the Sideling Hill Exhibit Center, which will also serve as a lunch stop. At this location you will see the Lower Mississippian foreland basin transition from marginal marine through meandering fluvial to braided fluvial deposition. The fourth stop will be near the village of Flintstone where we will examine a coral-stromatoporoid bioherm within the Silurian-Devonian Keyser Formation. Our last stop of the day will be a roadside examination of the Middle to Upper Silurian strata from the Rose Hill Formation through the base of the Tonoloway Formation.
