Peasants, Wood and Ritchie Counties
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V :.... "^I^C CD o o•s d a> a> P CO p p %•":, 3 02 WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY County Reports and Maps Pleasants, Wood and Ritchie Counties BY G. P. GRIMSLEY I. C. WHITE, State Geologist QE '77 f)SPS J THE ACHE PUBLISHING COMPANY PRINTERS AND BINDERS MOROANTOWN 1910 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY COMMISSION. WILLIAM E. GLASSCOCK President GOVERNOR OF WEST VIRGINIA. E. L. LONG Vice President TREASURER OE WEST VIRGINIA. ARCHIBALD MOORE Secretary PRESIDENT OF STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. D. B. PURINTON Treasurer PRESIDENT OF WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY. JAMES H. STEWART Executive Officer DIRECTOR STATE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. SCIENTIFIC STAFF. I. C. WHITE State Geologist SUPERINTENDENT OF THE SURVEY. G. P. GRIMSLEY Assistant Geologist RAY V. HENNEN Assistant Geologist C. E. KREBS Assistant Geologist D: B. REGER Temporary Field Assistant A. B. BROOKS Forester B. H. HITE Chief Chemist J. B. KRAK Assistant Chemist EARL M. HENNEN Chief Clerk J. L. WILLIAMS Stenographer LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. To His Excellency, Hon. William E. Glasscock, Governor of West Virginia, and President of the State Geological and Economic Survey Commission : the Detailed Sir : — I have the honor to transmit herewith Report of Prof. G. P. Grimsley on the counties of Pleasants, Wood and Ritchie, together with the topographic, geologic, and soil maps covering the entire area of the three counties in single sheets. These maps should prove of great value to every inter- est, and especially to that of agriculture. Aside from the vast oil and gas fields that have been developed in this area, the de- scription of which is so well set forth by Prof. Grimsley in the detailed Report submitted, the main source of natural wealth of the counties in question must always be found in its soils. True, there are splendid clays and shales for the manufacture of all manner of building and paving brick, and there is much good building stone accessible at the surface over wide areas of these three counties, but the Coal Measures, so rich in fuel farther eastward in Harrison and adjoining counties, contain practically no coal beds of commercial value at the present time. The rocky strata of the entire Coal Measures column occurring in the northern region of the State underlie this entire area, but the great Pittsburg bed so important in the counties of Har- rison, Marion, Monongalia, Marshall, Wetzel and the northern panhandle, as well as in eastern Doddridge, western Barbour, and over considerable areas in Taylor, Upshur, Lewis, Gilmer, Brax- ton, and a few other counties southwest from the latter, appears to be absent as a commercial deposit from Pleasants, Wood and Ritchie, while the coals of the Allegheny series, the Freeport, and Kittanning beds, so important in eastern Monongalia, Pres- ton, Barbour, Randolph, Tucker, Grant and Mineral counties, along the mountain regions of the State, are found in only thin and meagre development,,, so far as the drill of the oil and gas developments can be relied on, over the area herein described. A few years ago the drillers for several different oil companies operating in Union District Ritchie county, in what is locally LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. Vll. known as the White Oak oil fielld, reported a thickness of coal ranging fro,m 8 to 12 feet at the proper horizon for the Pitts- burg seam over a large region. A core drill, however, put down on the land of Zimri Flanaghan near the junction of Tuttle run with the South Fork of Hughes river, as described on pages 662 and 663, Volume II (A) of the State Survey Reports, found only 2 feet of coal under 10 feet of black slate, the oil well drill- ers having reported the entire 12 feet as \coal. It is barely pos- able that there may be limited areas in Ritchie where the Pitts- burg coal bed would make a better showing than the test on the Flanaghan farm, but the matter is doubtful. When the time comes in this county (as it most certainly will in the not distant future) that it becomes commercially possible to mine and distil the oily and bituminous matter from black shales, then this black shale and coal horizon of the Pittsburg bed in Ritchie county may prove a valuable mineral resource, since whatever coal is present could then be readily mined and taken out separte from the bituminous shale. The thin and irregular coal deposits occurring in the Coal Measures of this area appear to be clue to lack of suitable con- ditions for the growth and preservation of great peat bogs dur- ing Carboniferous time. As to the true cause of these unfavor- able conditions, the writer has elsewhere indicated that this fail- ure of deposition was primarily due to tbe water's covering the central portion of the Appalachian basin to a depth greater than was consistent with the rapid growth and accumulation of the debris from land vegetation, since the coal beds in each great series from the Pocahontas to the Monongahela, disappear suc- cessively in belts of no great width in miles, as one passes from the southeastern border of the Appalachian coal field north westward towards its central portion in West Virginia, while tbe rocky sediments of each series, although they greatly de crease in thickness, continue entirely across the basin, and ap pear to hold more limy material in the central portion where coal beds are thinnest and often completely absent as commer- cial fuel. The higher beds of the Permian series, like the Washing- ton coal, and Waynesburg .•/.. appear to be more persisl til over viii. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. this area than any of the others, and when coal becomes scarce in the Appalachian field, even these thin and impure beds may have considerable value. It is quite possible that the Waynes- burg A. bed may have been confused with the Washington coal in some portions of the area covered by this Report, since Mr. Hennen's work of 1909 in Caflhoun, Wirt and Roane counties appears to demonstrate that in the area he studied, the Waynes- burg A. bed is much more persistent than the higher or Wash- ington coal. The thin seam of coal at Cairo, which the writer onjee identified provisionally with the Washington and which identification Prof. Grimsley followed, turns out to be the Waynesburg A.. 60 to 70 feet below the horizon of the Wash- ington coal. Owing to the uncertain and irregular deposition of coal over this area, it is impossible, as Prof. Grimsley has said, to make any close estimate of the tonnage of these sporadic and impure beds that do occur. However, if we place the total quantity of coal, both pure and impure, that may exist under the area of these 3 counties, at 2 billion tons, it is quite proba- ble that it will not be underestimated. I. C. WHITE, State Geologist. Morgantown. April I, 1910. CONTENTS PAGE. Members of Geological Survey Commission Ill Members of Scientific Staff \ Letter of Transmittal VI-VIII Tab'.e of Contents IX Preface • XI 1 T Cbapter I. —The Historical and Industrial Development of Pleasants, Wood, and Ritchie Counties. i Chapter II.—The Physiography of Pleasants, Wood, and Ritchie Counties 13 Chapter III.—The Geology of Pleasants, Wood and Ritchie Counties 40 Chapter IV.—Petroleum and Natural Gas in Pleasant^ County 81 Chapter V.—Petroleum and Natural Gas in Wood County 114 Chapter VI.—Petroleum and Natural Gas in Ritchie County 147 Chapter VII.—The Chemistry of Petroleum from Pleasants. Wood, and Ritchie Counties 205 Chapter VIII.—Asphalt and Other Mineral Resources of Pleasants, Wood and Ritchie Counties 244 Chapter IX.—Climate of Pleasants, W]ood, and -Ritchie Counties 277 Chapter X.— Soil Survey of the Parkersburg Area 298 Appendix.—Levels above Mean Tide in Pleasants, Wood, and Ritchie Counties 33< I Index 34 ( ) ILLUSTRATIONS. MAPS IN ATLAS. Topographical Miap of Pleasants, Wood, and Ritchie Counties. Map Showing Areal Geology of Pleasants., Wood, and Ritchie Counties. Soil Map of Pleasants. Wood, and Ritchie Counties. PLATES. NO. PAGE. I. —Group of Derricks in the St. Marys and McFarlan Oil Fields Frontispiece II.— (A)—Birds Eye View of Town of St. Marys 18 (B) —The Ohio River Valley near Eureka. III.— (A) —View of Ohio River Valley near St. Marys. ... 36 (B) —Ohio River near St. Marys at Low Stage Water. IV.—Birds Eye View of Portion of Town of Cairo 52 A'. — (A) —The Hughes River Valley at McFarlan 60 (B) —The Sandstone Hills on McFarlan Run. VI.— (A) —Staunton Pike Bridge near McFarlan 80 (B) —Bando Oil Company Well on Long Run. VII.—Sandstone Rock Floor at Ohio River Dam, No. 18. 96 VIII.— Marietta Sandstone Cliffs near Calcutta 116 IX.—Waynesburg Sandstone Cliffs near Harrisville — 136 X. Waynesburg Sandstone Cliffs near St. Marys 150 X I . — Upper Freeport Sandstone and Coal on Cow Creek. ... 170 XII.—Folded Sandstone and Shales at Volcano 188 X I II.— (A)—Spindle Top Oil Field near St. Marys 200 (B)—Eureka Pipe Line Oil Tanks near Eureka. X I \ . —Oil Derrick near McFarlan 220 ILLUSTRATIONS. XI. XV.—Mount Farm Oil Field near Volcano 236 XVI.—Pumping Device in Volcano Oil Field 254 XVII.—Pumping Device on Mount Farm at Volcano 268 XVIII.—Grahamite Fissure at Ritchie Mines 280 XIX.— (A) —Marietta Sandstone Grindstone Quarry at Briscoe 300 (B) —Grindstones cut at Briscoe Quarry. XX.—High School Buildng at Parkersburg, Marietta Sand- stone 318 XXI.—Naughton Quarry in Waynesburg Sandstone at Cornwallis 330 FIGURES. NO. PAGE. i. Creek Profiles in Pleasants and Wood Counties 22 2. River and Creek Profiles in Wood and Ritchie Countes .