The Rockwell Formation is a late Devonian and early Mississippian mapped bedrock unit in West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, in the United States.
Description The Rockwell Formation was described at its type section at Rockwell Run in West Virginia as soft arkosic sandstone, fine hard conglomerate, and buff hackly shale.
The formation was originally described in West Virginia by Stose and Swartz (1912). It was first described in Maryland by H. E. Vokes (1957),Vokes, H.E., 1957, Geography and geology of Maryland: Maryland Geological Survey Bulletin, no. 19, p. 243. and later described in central Pennsylvania by C. R. Wood (1980).Wood, C.R., 1980, Summary groundwater resources of Centre County, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Geological Survey Water Resource Report, 4th series, no. 48, p. 60.
Stratigraphy The Rockwell is generally considered a Formation. At Formation rank, it has several members, including the Patton and Riddlesburg Shale Members,Kammer, T.W., and Bjerstedt, T.W., 1986, Stratigraphic framework of the Price Formation (Upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian) in West Virginia: Southeastern Geology, v. 27, no. 1, p. 13-33. and the Finzel Tongue.
It has been reduced in rank to a member of the Price Formation in West Virginia.
The Rockwell is a lateral equivalent of the Huntley Mountain Formation and the Spechty Kopf Formation, as all three underlie the prominent Pocono Formation and its lateral equivalent, the Burgoon Sandstone.
Lessing, Dean, and Kulander (1992) mapped the Meadow Branch synclinorium in Berkeley County, West Virginia, and noted that the Rockwell is approximately 200 meters thick here and that a 2-meter thick diamictite is present near the base.Lessing, Peter, Dean, S.L., and Kulander, B.R., 1992, Stratigraphy and structure of Meadow Branch synclinorium, West Virginia: Southeastern Geology, v. 32, no. 3, p. 166-174.
See also
Geology of Pennsylvania Huntley Mountain Formation
References