The Pennsylvania Geological Survey, or the Bureau of Geologic Survey, operates under the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The geological survey is over 180 years old and was established in 1836 by legislative mandate. There have been four total geologic surveys, with the fourth and current survey being established in 1919. Its main office is in Middletown, Pennsylvania, with an additional regional office in Pittsburgh. Survey geologists map the surface and subsurface geology of the state, and their findings are publicly available in their headquarters’ library, in an online list of bureau publications, or through the web-mapping application PaGEODE. The survey also licenses hundreds of drilling companies each year, and drillers can register through the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website.
The current State Geologist and director of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey is Dr. Gale C. Blackmer, who leads administrative functions and the bureau’s three divisions. The Geologic and Geographic Information Systems Division concerns information technology, GIS, earth science education, and the bureau’s literature and rock sample libraries. The Geologic Mapping Division contributes stratigraphic studies and groundwater and environmental geology. Lastly, the Geologic Resources Division performs mineral resource analysis, geochemistry analysis, and interprets petroleum and subsurface geology.
Mission and Purpose The current, and fourth, geological survey, created in 1919 by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, was tasked with “‘undertak[ing], conduct[ing], and maintain[ing] the organization of a thorough and extended survey of the State, for the purpose of elucidating the geology and topography of the State’”. The Pennsylvania Geological Survey’s mission is to serve the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a “science-based research organization that collects, preserves, and uses data in support of objective interpretations about Pennsylvania’s geologic resources,” which include water energy, minerals, and land.
At its founding, the survey was given the responsibility to “‘put the results of the survey, with the results of the previous surveys, into form convenient for reference.’” Due to this, an overarching goal of the survey is to “[disseminate] impartial geologic information essential to environmental stewardship, human health and safety, infrastructure development, and economic growth”. This dissemination occurs through providing openly available geologic maps, publications, reports, databases, educational outreach, and other resources to both the public and private sectors.
History The Pennsylvania Geological Survey has been documenting Pennsylvania geology since 1836, with an eye on “meeting the ever-changing needs of the times”. Over time, Pennsylvania’s interests have evolved from being focused primarily on coal and petroleum to combining those concerns with water supply, landslides, sinkholes, and tourism. With these progressing state-level interests in mind, the Pennsylvania Geological Survey is one of the “only few Executive Branch agencies whose history can be traced to the first half of the 19th century”.
The First Geological Survey (1836-1858) The First Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, created in 1836, was the first of four surveys in the state. In the 1830s, the population of Pennsylvania was increasing, industry was expanding, and anthracite coal was proving useful in the manufacture of iron. February 1832 saw the formation of the Geological Society of Pennsylvania, which sent persistent requests to the state legislature in December 1832 and December 1834 to urge a topographic, geologic, and mineralogic survey of Pennsylvania. In 1835, a committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, chaired by Rep. Charles B. Trego, read a report of the need to conduct a survey and thus reported a bill for consideration by the legislature. The bill, named Act 73 of 1836, was signed by Governor Ritner on March 29, 1836. Act 73 of 1836 established
“‘a geological and mineralogical survey of the state with a view to determine the order, succession, arrangement, relative position... of the several strata or geological formations within the state, and to discover and examine all beds and deposits or ores, coals, clays, marls... as may be necessary to make a full and complete geological and mineralogical survey of the state’”.
Pennsylvania was the ninth state in the United States to enact legislation for a geological survey. The First Geological Survey put an emphasis on internal improvements and had a desire to discover usable mineral resources in an industrializing era.
The First Geological Survey began fieldwork in May 1836, and held annual field campaigns until the summer of 1842, when operations were paused because of a lack of fund appropriations. The survey began again in 1851, and a report of its findings was published in 1858.
The first State Geologist was Henry Darwin Rogers, who was previously a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Rogers and his assistants made a rapid trip across the state in the direction of Erie to divide Pennsylvania into three sections and worked on the “Appalachian Section” that summer. The survey’s work here proved that the mountains of central Pennsylvania were not underlain by rocks of the same age and that the exploration for coal in the mountains was useless, as coal did not exist in that area. Overall, the first survey’s efforts provided a profound new scientific understanding of Pennsylvania geology. From 1838 to 1840, a maximum of nine assistants were employed each year, and the greatest attention was paid to bituminous coal and metallic ore-rich areas. After a period of lapse due a lack of funding, additional fieldwork was conducted in 1851 and 1852, largely in anthracite fields.
Citizens of Pennsylvania clamored for the publication of Rogers’s report and maps in 1851, but his work was not published until 1858. This final report was printed in two quarto volumes of 1631 pages, including 778 engraved woodcuts inserted into the text pages, 23 engraved plates showing illustrations of fossil plants, and other engraved plates of geologic sections and sketches of scenery. In addition to this, there were three full-color lithographs included in the report. This work set the framework and standard for all subsequent geologic mapping in the states along the Appalachian Mountains, and the first survey’s discoveries also prompted a new branch of geology: structural geology.
The Second Geological Survey (1874-1889) Pennsylvania’s industrial growth and the discovery of oil in the state prompted public demand for additional complete and detailed geologic information about coal, petroleum, iron ore, and other resources. More specifically, the interests of the mineral industries, the discovery of petroleum in northwestern Pennsylvania, and the need for accurate geologic maps resulted in the creation of the Second Geologic Survey in 1874. Established May 14, 1874, by the state legislature, the second survey included a ten-man oversight committee called the Board of Commissioners, that was authorized to choose a State Geologist and approve their plans. This board then selected J. Peter Lesley as State Geologist, who was also a former professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Lesley was a pioneer in utilizing topographic and structure contouring and aneroid altimeters in geologic mapping, and he was also a respected authors of many reports, articles, and other publications. The Board of Commissioners gave Lesley freedom in planning and executing the work of the second survey. In 1876, Lesley stated that
“‘the first survey was essentially a reconnaissance... The second survey is intended to supply this lack; to take up their work where they left off; to reduce their general statements to precision; to measure, where they could only estimate; to define, what they could only indicate; to demonstrate what they could see to be true, but which they could not prove and show in all its truth’”.
To accomplish his goals, Lesley built up a team of trained workers and demanded the highest standards of accuracy and detail from them. Lesley also purposely used methods that were at odds with Rogers, as he believed Rogers did not recognize his assistants enough. These methods included not amassing reports to be published later but instead publishing reports as soon as they could be edited and assembled. This allowed survey results to be timelier and more useful. Additionally, Lesley made sure his assistants received proper credit for their work.
The contributions and successes of the Second Geological Survey include almost 120 atlases and volumes, comprising numerous maps, drawing, columnar sections, and cross sections, and over 25,000 pages of printed material. The second survey also produced a “Grand Atlas” in six parts and a full geologic map of Pennsylvania. In addition to this, the second survey established the rock stratigraphy of the state and much of the stratigraphic nomenclature still used today. It published geologic maps for all 67 Pennsylvania counties, performed correlation studies in the oil and coal regions of western Pennsylvania, provided unprecedented detail and precision in mapping the anthracite districts, and began the first large-scale, systematic use of structure contours in geologic mapping.
With all of these accomplishments, however, there were also frustrations with the second survey. The uncertainty of the renewal of its biennial appropriation of funds created issues with planning future activities and led to multiple staff resignations. The second survey was also criticized by the legislature for its publication costs, the number of volumes produced, and the amount of repetitive material. By the time it ended, the second survey spent almost two-thirds of its $1.6 million budget on publishing.
The Third Geological Survey (1899-1914) Pennsylvania’s Third Geological Survey was established as the Topographic and Geologic Survey of Pennsylvania by legislative act on April 28, 1899. The act’s stipulations included a commission of three unpaid citizens to confer and accept cooperation with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to create contour topographic and geologic maps of Pennsylvania. G. W. McNees, Simon Harrold, and Fred D. Barker were then appointed as commissioners. An enactment on May 13, 1909, then authorized the establishment and maintenance of a topographic and geologic survey of the state and the appointment of a State Geologist.
Richard R. Hice was named the State Geologist in 1909 and was a former brick manufacturer and founder of the American Ceramic Society. He directed the third survey’s efforts primarily towards coal, natural gas, and oil. In his words, “‘The primary purpose of a Geological Survey is the encouragement of the mineral production of the State’”. There was also a mutual partnership between the third survey and the USGS at this time, and work in the first cooperative year included mapping the Uniontown and Masontown quadrangles and the Gaines and Elkland quadrangles. Most of the geologic work was done in the western part of the state and oriented almost exclusively toward economic resources. Many reports were published by the USGS, with 17 volumes also being published by the third survey itself. An especially important report by the third survey concerns the Broad Top coal field.