Now that we've visited a couple of stops in the Blue Ridge province, it was was time for my Structural Geology class to head out to the Valley & Ridge province.

We made a brief stop to be introduced to the Massanutten Sandstone (Silurian quartz sandstone to quartzite) at Blue Hole, where we noticed this fault zone:


...But the main show was up in Veach Gap, where there's a zillion parasitic folds on the larger Massanutten Synclinorium. This was our third Field Study Area. The anticlines are beautifully expressed in human-sized outcrops, while the intervening synclines are lost in the subsurface:














In spite of this profound deformation, there are still some primary structures to be seen, like these Arthrophycus (?) trace fossils...


...and these external molds of articulate brachiopods:


As you might be able to deduce from the angle of light in these photographs, we hit this site late in the day, and then went back to camp at a site Dave knew of, by a lovely creek. Jim and Joe cooked us an amazing dinner of pasta and meatballs, and we hung out by the campfire a bit before bed. Sleep, and then up and at 'em the next morning to move on to our final Field Study Area... (more on that tomorrow)

Labels: fossils, primary structures, sediment, silurian, structure, valley and ridge