VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES PUBLICATION 149

VIRGINIA'S AGES

S. O. BIRD

COMMONWEALTH OF' VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES, MINERALS AND ENERGY DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Stanley S. Johnson, State Geologist

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA 1997 DEPARTMENT OF MINES. MINERALS AND ENERGY RICHMOND, VIRGINIA O.Gene Dishner, Director

DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA Slanley S. Johnson, State Geologist and Division Director 80+963-2308

STAIIF Kay T. Hasenauer, Executive Secretary 80+963-23W

ECONOMIC MINERALS AND ENERGY SECTION SPATIAL DATA AND EASTERN GEOLOGY SECTION Palmer C. Sweet, Section Head, 804-963-2313 lan J. Duncan, Section Head, 804-963-23V1 Jack E. Nolde, Geologist Senior, 804-963-2318 C. R. Berquist, Jr., Geologist Senior, 757-221-2448 Roy S. Sites, Geologist Senior, 8M-963-2320 Elizabeth V. M. Campbell, Geologist Senio,r, 8M-963-2311 Michael L. Upchurch, Geologist Senior, 8M-963-2322 Nick H. Evans, Geologist Senior, 804-963-2317 V/illiam S. Henika, Geologist Senior, 540-231-4298 SOUTHIVEST MINERALS AND GEOLOGY SECTION Karen K. Hostettler, Geologist Senior, 8M-963-2312 Alfred R. Taylor, Section Head,540-676-5577 David B. Spears, Geologist Senior, 8M-963-2319 James A. Lovett, Geologist Seniot 540-67 6-5577 William W. Whitlock, Geologist Senior, 5&676-5577 PUBLICATIONS AND WESTERN GEOLOGY SECTION Eugene K. Rader, Section Head and Editor, 8M-963-23rc SALES AND SIIPPORT SECTION David A. Hubbard, Jr., Geologist Senior, 8M-963-2314 Delores J. Green, Office Manager, 8M-963-2315 John D. Marr, Jr., Geologist Senior, 8M-963-23A6 Antionet&e Arsic, Office Services Specialist, 8M-963-2270 Vernon N. Morris, Cartographic Drafter Assist., 8M-963-2324 Blwin W. Marshall, Geologist Technician, 8M-963-2316 Gerald P. Wilkes, Geologist Senior, 8M-963-2323 Paige S. Roach, Store Operations Supervisor, 8M-963-2305

Sates: 804-293-5121 Information: E04-963-23ffi

Portions of this publication may be quoted or copied if credit is given to the author, the Division of Mineral Resources, and the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES PUBLICATION 149

VIRGII\IA'S COAL AGES

S. O. BIRD

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES, MINERALS AND ENERGY DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Stanley S. Johnson, State Geologist

CHARLOTTES VILLE, VIRGINIA t997 CONTENTS

Page

ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE Page :r?l i: ["if*:*iti#3*:Jffi:"ilili:i.:*:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

5. Restoration scene of a

FIGURE

l. Physiographic provinces of Virginia and areas mined for coal...... 2 2. Generalized stratigraphic section of the coalfield ...... 3 3. U.S. consumption of oil, natural gas, and coal 1970-1994 ...... 3 4. Charred remains of the dense forest in the Great Dismal Swamp...... 4

6. Confguration of base of Dismal 7. , , and Upper rocks of parts of Virginia...... 9 8. Generalized geologic map of part of southwestern Virginia...... l0 9. General position of seas and lands in eastern U.S. during Carboniferous times ...... 11 10. Land and sea of part of Appalachian basin during Early time ...... 12 11. Cross-bedded quaftz of the Early -age Lee Formation at Cumberland Gap ....-. 14 12. Watergapof theNewRivernearNarrows,Virginia ...... 14

15. A view westward

TABLES l. 2. VIRGINIA'S COAL AGES

S. O. BIRD

ABSTRACT GENERAL GEOLOGY OF VIRGINIA'S

Virginia's coals lie in three distinct geologic settings: the KING COAL youngest coal is in -age basins of the Piedmont province (chiefly in the Richmond basin), in Early Mississip- The youngest coal deposits in Virginia and the first ones to pian-age rocks of the Valley and Ridge province, and in mainly be mined in the are from an area near Richmond, Pennsylvanian-age rocks of the Appalachian Plateaus prov- where several bituminous coal beds occur in Mesozoic-age rocks ince. The history of production follows this classification, but occupying a faulGformed basin @gure 1, Plate l). These coals development was related to population and geography rather were first mined commercially in I 748, and were mined continu- than to geology. Coal was first mined in the Richmond basin ously until 1904 when production ceased. Coal from this mea in the mid-1700s, in the Valley and Ridge province in the was being shipped fromHampton, Virginiato the NewYorkCity middle I 800s to the early 1 900s, and from the I 880s until today area as eady as 1758. Virginia coal was an important firel source in the plateaus province. along the Atlantic seabomd until about 1820, when extensive Coal forms from peat such as is present in the Great canal construction made anthracite available to Dismal Swamp (southeastern Virginia and northeastern North areas formerly supplied by Virginia. The Richmond coalfield Carolina), which is a modern model of earlier coal swamps. became a major fuel source during the Civil War, but pmduction However, the plants and of today are much changed declined after the war, and was cut in half the year that the first from those that lived in the peat swamps of the "Coal Ages." shipments of coal left Tazewell County, in southwestern Vt- ginia, by rail in I 883. Production of Mesozoic-age coal declined sharply thereafter. INTRODUCTION Mesozoic-age coal was extacted using rnanual labor in underground mines from five separate mining districts in the Coal was the fuel of the industrial revolution and it is the fuel Richmond coalfield. The thickest coal was over 5Gfeet thick. but for the forseeable future. Long after oil and gas supplies have typically the coals mined were from 5 to l0 feet thick. Over the been exhausted, coal resources will remain. New uses are life of the field, over 8 million tons of coal was removed. The constantly being found for coal and old ones are being rediscov- Richmond coalfield is currently thought of as a viable coal-bed ered or renewed. Some coals are largely free of sulfur and methane resource. Resource estimates have not been made for therefore can be burned without giving off SO*. Fluidized bed coal of the same age in the Farmville basin to the west, where one experiments by the U.S. Department of Energy Show that sulfur- five-foot thick coal bed was mined for local use in the mid- 1800s. beming coals can bebumed in thepresenceof to greatly Coal was produced commercially from the Valley coalfi elds, reduce SO" emissions. Coal can also be used as a "liquid" fuel (Figurc 1) lying in the area from Botetourt County to Smyth when mixed with water and detergents. Some of the research on County as early as I 860 and as late as I 993 . The coal that fueled this has been canied out by Atlantic Research and by United Coal the frigate Merrimac in its historic encounter with the Monitor Company (Bird, 1985). Further research at United Coal facilities was from the Merrimac coal bed in Montgomery County. The in Bristol, Virginia have been toward producing coke, diesel Merrimac bed with othercoal beds in Montgomery andPulaski fuels, and high-grade gasolines from coal in series of distillation Counties furnished the great bulk of Valley coal production. processes. Coal produces some 50 percent of the electricity Mining access to semianthracite and bituminous coals of the generated in Virginia and it is also used in cogeneration plants Valley is commonly severely limited, because in places the where heat and electricity are produced from steam generated by stratigraphic units containing them are intensely deformed. The burning coal. Coal contains methane, or natural gas. In places coals can be mined along strike in suitable places, but in the dip this gas is ahazard tomining, but the gas content can also be useful direction they plunge far below the surface, commonly over short as it is drawn off by drilling the coal to release the methane before lateral distances. The coal was mined in shafts in these areas. At or during mining. Operations producing gas from coal have been places the beds are displaced by faults. carried out for years in the Black Warrior basin of northcentral The 1996 value of coal produced in Virginia was $974.36- Alabama and by Island Creek Coal Company and Equitable million (Sweet and Nolde, In Press). All the coal mined in Resources Energy Company in southwestern Virginia to degas Virginia today is bituminous rank from the plateaus province, coal beds in Buchanan and Dickenson Counties. which includes all orparts of Buchanan, Dickenson, ke, Russell, Coke made from coal is required to make steel from iron. Scott, Tazewell, and Wise Counties. Of the counties, Buchanan Coal by-products, such as tar and pitch together with derived gas, is the leading producer and Wise is second. Some 95 percent of find many uses in the chemical, fertilizer, plastic, insecticide, and the state's coal resources are in the plateaus province, where dye industries. mining has been continuous since the 1880s, the time when Great quantities of coal from Virginia, , and railroads wereextended intotheregion inordertomarketthecoal. are loaded for export onto supersized ships at the port Demonstratedreserves forVirginiawereabout2.32-billion short terminals ofNewport News, which include the Dominion Termi- tons in January, 1995. nal completed in 1984. Virginia ranked eighth in annual coal Virginia's plateaus-province coal is mostly high- to low- production in the U.S. in 1995. volatile A. bituminous coal. Some of this coal is used as coke VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOI.]RCES

COAL FIELDS

SOUTHWEST

RICHMOND

VALLEY

1€FJl3i

\CAFFOLL "e*at ,/ li"^"'ff"it);,*j ;t ","*\ #*iffi PLAIN VALLEY AND RTDGE COASTAL PIEDMONT (TRIASSIC BAsll'lstl )

Figure 1. Physiographic provinces of Virginia and areas mined for coal. The fall line is at the PiedmonVCoastal Plain bundary. Virginia was in the southern hemisphere in Late Mississippian time according to paleomagnetic data. No coal is currently being mined in the Valley fields or in the Richmond basin. feedstock. For example, the Early Pennsylvanian Pocahontas miners' reports and from explosions at several mines. The No. 3 coal, a low volatile, high-fixed-carbon coal, is used drilling program was designed to determine subsurface locations extensively throughout the world in making coke for produc- and thicknesses ofPrice coal beds and to evaluate the amount and ing steel. Some of the major coal beds of the Virginia plateaus quality of the methane contained in these coals. Drilling sites province are shown in stratigraphic sequence in Figure 2. were chosen in areas ovedain by rock strata thick enough (at least Theconsumption of coal in the United States continues to 100ofeet) to seal the gas within thecoal, andthesites werelocated increase (Figure 3). A full two-thirds of coal produced in the farenough away from surface mines to preclude orreduce loss of United States is now used by utilities for producing electricity. gas through this possible egrcss. It is certain that coal will continue to be important to the wodd Gas contentof coal samples recovered from the drill cores economy far into the future, and that Virginia will continue to was calculated bydegassing thecoal at the surface andmeasur- play a vital role in the coal economy of the world for many ing the volume of water it displaced. Maximum total quantities years. This will be true even if other power sources are brought ofgas thus released and measured were about 12 cubic centi- to commercial development. Virginia currently produces about meters/gram of coal. 3.5 percent of the coal mined in the United States annually; it An economic feasibility study for producing the gas produced about 36.7-million short tons in 1996. contained in the coal was prepared by Gruy Petroleum Tech- nology Incorporated. This study, which is included in the COAL AND NATURAL GAS report by Stanley and Schultz (1983), indicated that commer- cial production would be marginally profitable. ftedicted total Richmond basin: Methane, or natural gas, is commonly recovery of gas was estimated in the feasibility study for three associated with coal, often in large quantities. Several wells well-spacing strategies - production was predicted for I 0-acre, were drilled in the Richmond basin by commercial companies 20-aqe, and 40-acre well spacings. Gas recovery was pre- to test the prospect ofproducing gas (or oil) from the Triassic- dicted to be best (about 5 I percent) for the I 0-acre centers, and age rocks. The presence of gas in the basin was well known well life was predicted to be longest (about 15 years) for 40- from the eadiest days of mining when violent and frequent acre centers. Analyses included incremental profit-and-loss, mine explosions were caused by ignition of this gas as the coal balance-sheet, and cash-flow estimates together with other was being mined. variables necessary in making gas production in the area a profitable venture. Valley coalfields near Blacksburg: In a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Virginia Division of Mineral Appalachian Plateaus and non-coal Valley Gas fields: Prior to Resources drilled three holes to assess the coal-bed methane and 1988 most of Virginia's gas production (19,l72-million cubic resources of coal strata within the Mississippian-age Price For- feet) was from the Appalachian Plateaus area, and was not mation in the vicinity of Blacksburg (Stanley and Schultz, 1983). associated with coal. The major natural gas producers in the Iarge quantities of gas were known to occur in these coals from Appalachian Plateaus are the Price, Greenbrier, and Hinton PI]BLICATION 149

FOBMATION

UilNAMED

NO. 13

HIGH SPLINI MOFRIS

PAROEE

PHILLIPS z HOUSE FE$$F$E$$yaf = LOW SPLINT f 34 - |NCH Figure 3. U.S. consumption of oil, natural gas, and coal 1970- Uarcum Hollow Ss g) MARKER 1994 (one Btu=252 calories). z r. CHARLES z 3 UJ KELLY o- 2 Formations - all of Mississippian age. The lithologies and IMEOOEN IJJ Y depositional environments of these formations are discussed in J IMBOOEN MARKER o a later section. It is likely that the source rock for the gas from o AODINGTON the Appalachian Plateaus fields is black of Late Devo- Addin0ton cLtt{Twooo S6 nian and E.arly age that lies below the reservoir BLAIR Mssissippian LYOXS rocks, rather than the coal beds that lie above them. These DOFC}IESTER Gladovill€ NORTON ; Ss Norton Ss are potential gas producers. Wise County is the leading Devonian and Mississippian gas producer in the State; HAGY Dickenson County is second.

SPLASH OATI Valley gas fields in Rockingham and in Scott and Wash- UPPER BANNER ington Counties (the Bergton and Early Grove fields) are LOWEF BANNER likewise not associated with coal. Some gas is produced from the Ben Hur oil field in Lee County. This too is a Valley field. Coal-bed methane has been produced since 1 98 8 . Produc- BIG FORK tion comes from Pennsylvanian-age coal and associated shale.

KEIlNEDY Since 1992, coal-bed methane production has surpassed pro- Bee Rock Ss/ilccluro Ss duction from the Mississippian- and Devonian-age reservoirs. AILY Buchanan County leads in coal-bed methane production fol- lowed by Dickenson County. RAVEN A BROI(I'-N CYCLE z JAWSONE TILLEN ON THE ORGIN OF COAL 2 Council Sa uU l J Introduction: Normally, life's organic compounds are oxi- a UPPER SEABOARO dized by bacteria to form carbon dioxide and water. The z GREASY CREEK z MIDOLE SEABOARO substances from which the complex molecules were formed, IJJ Middlgsboro Upp€r Tonguo o LOW€R SEASOARD and the energy stored in these compounds during their forma- ar MIODLE HORSEPEN tion is released during the decay process. Coal represents an uJ intemrption in the cycle in which the carbon dioxide is 3 WAR CREEK "tem- o LOWER H09SEPEN porarily" (the lag may amount to hundreds of millions of years) J LITTLE FIRE CREEK made inaccessible to the atmosphere by the storage of energy

POCAHONTAS NO.8 and material. The oxidation is accomplished when the coal is COVE Cf,EEK burned and returns the carbon dioxide and some hydrogen as POCAHONTAS NO.8 water, to the atmosphere to renew the materials and start a Middlesboro Low€r Tongue new POCAHONTAS NO.4 cycle. POCAHONTAS NO.3 Coal comes mainly from plant debris. Coal-like materials SOUIRE JIM can be made by heating wood to about 30OC in the absence of air. Coal was made in the laboratory from peat as early as I 9 I 3 . Figure 2. Genenlized stratigraphic section of the Southwest The chemical history of the transforming process from plant Virginiacoalfield, no scale implied (from Wilkes and orhers, debris to coal is not well known. nor is the fundamental 1992). structural framework (is coal amorphous, or does it have the VIRGINIA DryISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

$aphite or the diamond structure?), nor the fundamental chemical make-up (is coal mainly composed of simple, ali- phatic, or complex, aromatic compounds?) known. A major part of coal's intractability in these matters owes to its general insolubility without oxidation (which destroys compounds and structures), its opacity to light, and its feeble X-ray patterns. Coal has resisted numerous and ingenious efforts of analyses in the test tube, under the microscope, and in the X-ray machine. Furthermore, the relative contributions from the wood of lignin, a complex and oxidation-resistant substance, and cellulose, a simpler and less resistant material, in forming coal is now, and has been for years, in debate. Finally, the relative influences of time, heat, and pressure of burial or of compressive deformation are not fu1ly determined. Two ex- amples may be used to show, however, thatpressure is important. and peat in the Great Peat has been found in concretions sunounded by coal in ancient Figure 4. Chaned remains of forest beds of rock showing that pressure has had a great, and time a Djsmal Swamo. small, influence in forming coal. Wooden mine-roof supports in places have had their centers turned to coal by the weight ofthe rocks they support. Studies by Trent and others (1982) have shown that tectonic compression probably does substitute for burial pres- sure as may be inferred from the finding that carbon content of coal increases toward the center and down plunge inindividual folds in southeastern West Virginia, including the Pocahontas syncline, and elsewhere. Cecil and others (19'79) have argued that fold crests and troughs may be areas of low pressure where gas is released and where there is a concomitant increase in carbon content or coal rank. The most critical factor in determing coal rank is probably depth of burial, because of its direct relation to temperature thrcugh the geothermal gradient (about 2'Cll}O feet). Original composition is also important.

Peat-coal's progenitor: Peat is an early stage in the coal-making process in which bacteria-aided decomposition has proceeded by destroying molecular bonds and driving off hydrogen and oxy- gen to form humic acid from lignin and cellulose. The result is a "solid" mass of brown to black, fibrous and spongy to grease- like peat with acarbon content enriched some 5 to l0percent with regard to the original materials. This carbonization brings about an increase in the fuel value of the substance: moisture-free peat contains as much as 2000 more Btu/pound than does dried wood. Grating used to burn wood will melt when used for peat. In lignite and in bituminous coal the carbon content is raised still higher and the energy content is also higher. Although there is abundant evidence that coal beds ofthe Appalachians from Alabama to Nova Scotia accumulated under tropical conditions, the greatest part of modern peat deposits formed at relatively high latitudes. Deposits in Finland, the former Soviet Union, Ireland, and Canada are examples. These deposits formed over the past I 5,000 years or so, the time since the melting of the world's great ice sheets. Sizable peat deposits are located in the eastern United States in Maine, New York, New Jersey, , and Figure 5. Burned and preserved peat. Photographs taken Florida. The largest accumulation ofpeat in Virginia lies in the shortly after the great fire in October 1930; courtesy Virginia Great Dismal Swamp (Figure 4, 5); the peat, which formed Division of Forestry (print by T. M. Gathright, II). over the last 10,000 years and is forming today, is locally about 15 feet thick, and in places contains full-sized tree trunks - mainly cypress, Atlantic white cedar, and gum. everywhere it contains microscopic pollen and spores. These remains show that the trees which formed the bulk of the peat The Great Dismal Swamp as a coal-forming model: The are the same ones growing in virgin stands today, including formation process of the Great Dismal Swamp peat makes a VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

$aphite or the diamond structure?), nor the fundamental chemical make-up (is coal mainly composed of simple, ali- phatic, or complex, aromatic compounds?) known. A major part of coal's intractability in these matters owes to its general insolubility without oxidation (which destroys compounds and structures), its opacity to light, and its feeble X-ray patterns. Coal has resisted numerous and ingenious efforts ofanalyses in the test tube, under the microscope, and in the X-ray machine. Furthermore, the relative contributions from the wood of lignin, a complex and oxidation-resistant substance, and cellulose, a simpler and less resistant material, in forming coal is now, and has been for years, in debate. Finally, the relative influences of time, heat, and pressure of burial or of compressive deformation are not fully determined. Two ex- amples maybeusedto show, however, thatpressure is important. forest and peat in the Great Peat has been found in concretions sunounded by coal in ancient Figure 4. Charred remains of beds ofrock showing that pressure has had a great, and time a Dismal Swamo. small, influence in forming coal. Wooden mine-roof supports in places have had their centers turned to coal by the weight ofthe rocks they support. Studies by Trent and others (1982) have shown that tectonic compression probably does substitute for burial pres- sure as may be inferred from the finding that carbon content of coal increases toward the center and down plunge in individual folds in southeastern West Virginia, including the Pocahontas syncline, and elsewhere. Cecil and others (1979) have argued that fold crests and troughs may be areas of low pressure where gas is released and where there is a concomitant ihcrease in carbon content orcoal rank. The mostcritical factor in determing coal rank is probably depth of burial, because of its direct relation to temperature through the geothermal gradient (about 2"C/lOO feet). Original composition is also important.

Peat--coal's orogenitor: Peat is an eady stage in the coal-making process in which bacteria-aideddecomposition has proceeded by destroying molecular bonds and driving offhydrogen and oxy- gen to form humic acid from lignin and cellulose. The result is a "solid" mass of brown to black, fibrous and spongy to grease-

like peat with a carbon content enriched some 5 to 1 0 percent with regard to the original materials. This carbonization brings about an increase in the fuel value of the substance: moisture-free peat contains as much as 2000 more Btu/pound than does dried wood. Grating used to burn wood will melt when used forpeat. In lignite and in bituminous coal the carbon content is raised still higher and the energy content is also higher. Although there is abundant evidence that coal beds of the Appalachians from Alabama to Nova Scotia accumulated under tropical conditions, the greatest part of modern peat deposits formed at relatively high latitudes. Deposits in Finland, the former Soviet Union, Ireland, and Canada are examples. These deposits formed over the past 15,000 years or so, the time since the melting of the world's great ice sheets. Sizable peat deposits are located in the eastern United States in Maine, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Figure 5. Burned and preserved peat. Photographs taken Florida. The largest accumulation of peat in Virginia lies in the shortly after the great fire in October 1930; courtesy Virginia Great Dismal Swamp (Figure 4, 5); the peat, which formed Division of Forestry (print by T. M. Gathright, II). over the last 10,000 years and is forming today, is locally about 15 feet thick, and in places contains full-sized tree trunks - mainly cypress, Atlantic white cedar, and gum. everywhere it contains microscopic pollen and spores. These remains show that the trees which formed the bulk of tbe peat The Great Dismal Swamp as a coal-forming model: The are the same ones growing in virgin stands today, including formation process of the Great Dismal Swamp peat makes a PTJBLICATION I49

very incomplete model for the various coal formations of the Appalachian Plateaus area of Virginia. Still later, mineable Virginia, but it does present a vivid picture of early stages of coal formed in the Mesozoic-age basin west of Richmond. coalification. The origin of the Great Dismal Swamp and its peat began with the formation of a low-lying coastal area SOME ANCIENT MSTORY resulting from the gradual withdrawal of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Fall of sea level in response to growth of A WORLD SO FULL OF INTERESTINGTHINGS glaciers was completed less than 25,000 years ago. Later, as sea level rose, water tables near the coast also rose. Drainage The history of the earth, which at times is presented so on the newly created, gently sloping land became danmed, and offhandedly by geologists, was pieced together from detailed grasslands and forested lands were slowly flooded by sluggish studies of local geology. The work did and does now prcceed stream waters. Oxygen in the shallow waters was depleted by from careful observations in the field, to geologic mapping of its union with fallen vegetation. Aerobic bacterial growth was rocks and stnrctures, to painstaking studies in the laboratory of the impeded by the oxygen depletion and, later on, growth of , chemical, and mineral makeup of the rocks in order to anaerobes was stopped by the accumulation of humic acid, a determinetheir age, origin, and economicpotential. This general "waste product'' of the bacteria. As fallen vegetation choked approach to the study of geology eamestly began with the great the stream channels, the dark, antiseptic waters of the swamp Scottish geologist James Hutton a scant 200 years ago. In the rose higher and vegetation continued to accumulate in the brief time since Hutton's day, methods of obtaining relative age (established (made possible stream channels and on the floor of the swamp. Once the mainly by ) and absolute age possible streams were dammed, they were too slow moving to carry by radiometric dating) have made it for rock strat& and the events theyrecord, tobecorrelated throughoutthe world, and particles larger than clay-size, which are difficult to erode. knined into a logical whole. This process is now so complete that Hence, the peat that accumulated was free of sediments. descriptions of local areas and events must fit into the three- Ancient stream channels of the Great Dismal Swamp are dimensional model ofthe entireearth as fashionedby geologists. readily seen in Figure 6. In this model the third spatial dimension is also a measure of time The coals of and the Great Dismal Swamp as represented by a selected vertical section ofrockplus thegaps peat differ in many important ways. Aside from the differences in this record. It is evident thar a geologic is in age and types of plants forming the deposits, major distinc- in many ways a geologic history of the earth. tions are that the Appalachian coals formed over a very A generalized geologic column for the earth and for Virginia extensive area andconsists ofa series ofcoal beds separated by is presented in Table l. Thechief events forourconcern are those sedimentary rocks up to hundreds of feet thick. of the Carboniferous (Mississippian and Pennsylvanian) and It is estimated that it takes about 20 feet of plant debris to early and middle Mesozoic times. produce seven feet of peat or a foot of coal. Thus, a l0-foof Mostof the rocks that form the two-thirds of Virginialying thick coal bed represents 200 feet of plant debris, partially west of the Fall Line, which separates the crystalline rocks of the decayed, compressed, and otherwise altered. Compaction is Piedmont province from the sediments and sedimentary rocks of largely accomplished by the deposition of sediment over the the Coastal Plain province, were formed before Carboniferous peat and by its drying before or after burial by the sediment. time. By then, the great sedimentary basin that was to become the Fresh peat is about 80 to 90 percent water by weight. Some of Appalachian Mountains, which extended from Newfoundland to the carbon enrichment must take place late in the stage of westernmost Texas, was full of the rock waste being derived from coalification, because methane is trapped in the coal; it would tectonic and volcanic highland terranes lying to the east ofthe not likely be trapped in the porous and gas-permeable peat that basin. This basin had been in existence since Early preceded it. time and extended west as far as Ohio and eastward tens of miles under the present and Piedmont province. What an alien place Virginia would have been to us during The producl One coal bed of the Appalachians, the Pittsburgh theCarboniferous, orcoal age. Fromtheair, we would seeagreen seam in the Pennsylvanian Systenr, covers an unbroken area of lowland or swamp forest formed from a crowded, entangled mass about 6000 square miles in contiguous parts of Pennsylvania, oflarge trees stretching out to the horizon north and south. The Ohio, and West Virgini4 and is up to 13 feet thick. Great deposits clear, shallow watersofan unnamed sea would lie tothewest, and of peat formed in slowly subsiding swampy areas, that marine far to the east would be barren, brown hills. A lacework of water did not flood. Above the Pittsburgh seam, and others as sluggish coastal streams, distributaries formed from coalescing well, are sediments that indicate an increase gradients in stream rills arising from the distant hinterland to the east, would define or, alternatively, a rise of the nearby sea as continental or marine deltas along the swampy shoreline. One large river would deposits were formed in the area. Thus, peat accumulated along disappear toward lhe mountains to the south - this would be the an expansive coastal plain from Pennsylvania to Alabama at ancestral New River. Farther south, another stream, the ancestal times during the Carboniferous time. French-Broad, would also extend back into the rising mountain The oldest coals in the State are within the mass. Just offshore wouldbe an extensivechain ofbarrierislands @arly Mississippian time). Following a marine incursion re- fronting shallow lagoons. The scene mightremind us of the Back corded in the Maccrady and Greenbrier Formations, which lie Bay - Great Dismal Swamp area of southeastern Virginia or the above the Price, continental conditions were again gradually shoreline of the Pamlico-Albemarle Sound area of North Caro- established. By Early Pennsylvanian time, expansive peats that lina, or of the Florida Everglades. formed the Pocahontas coals began to accumulate in what is now VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

?6.2J'

Estlcnatacn . trcl !rmr. ll - Pacl til. tc a!.ant ---- Surtaca ccltau?r lttl. lil.r.trl Cdlcrrf cf Laa ot - ,.cl Ocla: | 0.R. Wlralai.o., o Ocb.Roag.r..s|ilat a An.rrccn lsa Co. rc_-. o .W.W. O.Dcn (trt9l / @ re teor

;ffia,1

'

'sR\\ ?* t- I ot2 I -\ t td \\. miles 20 3ri

Figure 6. Configuration of the base of Dismal Swamp peat showing obvious sfeam channels. Sea level is datum for both topography and peat base (from Oaks and Koch, 1973). PUBLICATION 149

TABLE l. Geologic time chart and major events.

ERAS PERIODS EPOCHS WORLD EVENT VIRGINIA EVENT: FORMATION OF

HOLOCENE Coming of man ; modern beaches; QUATERNARY O.OI* and lce Ages Dismal Swamp peat a c) 5 Age of mammals; Marine and non-marine deposits 5 7 dominance of flow- of Coastal Plain a ering plants; late (J 25 stages of develop- TERTIARY ment of Alps, 40 Rockies. Andes 60 65

CRETACEOUS Wholesale extinc- Continental deposits at margin U tions; end of reign of opening Atlantic Ocean 6 140 of reptiles N o Early stages of Subsurface deposits ofCoastal FI 175 break-up of Plain; extensional faulted basins in Piedmont, Pangea and for- diabase intrustions; basin filling TRIASSIC mation of Atlantic 230 Ocean

PERMIAN Great extinctions, Erosional surfaces on newly continued coal for- formed Appalachian Mountains mation and great glaciers in 280 Gondwana.

PENNSYLVANIAN Great coal age; Coal and continental deposits 312 southern glaciers; of plateaus area; coal of Valley rise of reptiles; and Ridge; thrust faulting and MISSISSIPPIAN birth of Appala- folding, closing of proto- 345 chian Mountain Atlantic Ocean chain C) 5 DEVONIAN 5 Ages of fishes; Valley and Ridge and frl first forest; ; deltaic redbeds; fFl 395 first amphibians black shales First land animals? Great ridge forming sandstones 435 of Valley and Ridge

ORDOVICIAN Rise of fishes; Vast limestones of Valley and extensive seas Ridge area 50s on continents

CAMBRIAN Early stages of Oldest deposits of Valley and Ridge Appalachian at West flank of Blue Ridge trough; first 570 shelled life

z Formation of Lavas of Blue Ridge and Piedmont; x continental opening of proto-Atlantic Ocean nucleii E H x 3500 or more

* Numbers refer to millions of years before present. VIRGINIA DTVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

OF LIFE madeof the shells of large, marine protozoans were usedin the building of the great pyramids. The Mississippian-age Salem The ancient cast The climate would be similar to that of the Limestone of Indiana, a widely used ornamental stone, is present Florida Keys. The swampy floor of the forest would mainly skeletons of bryozoans and an eady fusuline. have familiar algae, mushrooms, mosses, and ferns, but little Fusulines are peculiarin that they had no aperture and that leaf litter, and there would be no flowers nor grass (Plates 2, 3, the septa separating the individual chambers of their tests 4, and 5 ). Some 100 feet above us would be a 'tanopy" formed became highly convoluted as they evolved. This odd geomefy from nearly branchless, needle-leaved trees, that could alone and their wide geographic distribution, in spite of the fact that offer no more than pathways of shade, but growing in profu- they were bottom dwellers, accounts for the fusulines being sion. their boles would shade and darken the forest floor. The ranked as a "best" group of fossils for correlating rocks and largest of these trees was the important coal-forming group events around the world. The group became extinct before the known as lycopods whose closest relatives today are the little end ofthe Era. "club mosses" and "running cedar," which are herbaceous In rare instances throughout the very imperfect geologic creepers on modern, damp, cool forest floors. Tree ferns record, the transitional environment between the sea and the (which exist today in the tropical rain forests) were other large, land is preserved; much more rarely, remains of the life of those arborescent forms. haunts are left juxtaposed for us to see. Perhaps the best Noises in the forest would consist of the dry rustle of the example and best known of such deposits is the Mazon Creek needles of these "Eees," the drone of giant dragonflys, and, biota located about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. This perhaps, the croaking of some of the eady, distant relatives of unique collection of fossils occurs in the Francis Creek Shale frogs and salamanders, and the belching of lung fish. This fish, Member of the Cabondale Formation, which is Middle Penn- the ancestral stock, had lived on from past ages to sylvanian age. Here, fossils of both marine and lerrestrial become cohabitants of the land along with their offspring, the organisms give a silent, but striking, account of climate and amphibians. There would be no singing of birds, for there were province, habitat and ecology, success and failure, evolution none. Except for amphibians, insects, and spiders, and a single and extinction. The Mazon Creek record of the non-marine group of reptiles, no other creature had evolved to hear them. fossils is so unique and spectacular as to be inexpressible save Besides sharks, primitive bony fish related to modern day for photographs of some of the forms found there, which sturgeon, and jawless eels, no fish of the sea would have been include insects, spiders, wofins, abundant and diverse plants, familiar to us, and there was no form of life higher than fishes in and lung fi sh--all preserved within ironstone concretions @lates those waters. A few of the fishes were very large: one giant, a 3,4). Five feet above these fossiliferous beds, which were first placoderm, from a class including the frst fish with jaws, described more than 100 years ago, is a 5-foot-thick coal bed, inhabited Late Devonian-age and possibly Early Mississippian- which records a time of wholly continental conditions. age nearshore areas of low salinity, including estuaries and sounds. Remains of this 3Gfoot-long, toothless, butpredatory, AND ROCKS fish are found in black shale that represent stagnant bottoms of inland waten. ... to keep the sea from transgressing the land: The Carbon- The amphibians of these times deserve a further note, for iferous-age rocks of southwestern Virginia (Figures 7, 8, 9, 10) they bear witness to the frst struggling steps of ' tell the story of a struggle between the sea and the land. The conquest of the land. These giant steps in evolution, which were general geologic setting for the time is given in Figure 9, which being paralleled by the plants' conquest ofdry land ttrough the depicts erosion of the newly uplifted Appalachian Moun0ains to development of the see{ were trod by animals of huge propor- the east and a shallow sea to the west. As the land rose repeatedly tions as compared to their modern descendants, the frogs. One during late Paleozoic time, rivers formed and entrenched as a group, known as labyrinthodontsbecause of thecomplex infold- result of the uplift, quickened their pace and increased their ing of the enamel of their teeth, reached lengths of 12 feet. These sediment load. Deltas built into the western sea were partially forms were the rcotstock of the reptiles which are first known eroded by feeble waves and buried as the basin subsided. The from Pennsylvanian time and which became the dominant ani- shallow sea held its shoreline in Virginia through much of mals of both land and sea throughout Mesozic time. Mississippian time, but at the time of the Invertebrate lifeofthe seas leaves arecord ofits existence (Figure 7) it was pushed westward by such huge volumes of far superior to that of related forms on land. Some of the more sediment that it never again fully returned, though the cycle of common marine forms of Carboniferous time are shown in subsidence and filling continued for millions of years. Plate 5. Reefs formed of rugose , productid , The ancestral New River (Figure 9) was one of the rivers frond-bearingbryozoa, and large-armed grew in shal- born during the time of tumultuous uplift known as the low, neady waveless areas of the inland sea. Many of these , which began in the Mississippian Pe- groups are extinct at the systematic level of order. One peculiar riod. It and associated streams cut into the newly risen invertebrate group arising in the coal age, was a large, marine, mountains and carried the sediments that formed the great shelled, amoeba-like protozoan. The tests of these wheat- deltas of the Carboniferous age of southwest Virginia. The grain-shaped and wheat-grain-sized foraminiferans known as New River is one of only two streams that today flow northwest- fusulines were so abundant in places, for example, in parts of wardly across the Valley and Ridge province to empty, eventu- Texas, Kansas, Indiana, and Illinois, as to form whole forma- ally, into the Gulf of Mexico. The other stream is the French- tions of limestone - much as their modern formaminiferan Broad River which, like the New, heads in the North Carolina relatives do today in the shallow waters of the Bahama Islands. Blue Ridge Mountains. Other streams of the Valley and Ridge Other, much younger (lower ) limestones of Egypt province such as the 'tnighty" James and Potomac Rivers, have PUBLICATION 149

Figure 7. Triassic, Carboniferoust, and Upper Devonian rocks of parts of Virginia.

GENERAL LITHOI.OGY AND DEPOSITIONAL EI\ryIRONMENT

Upper Newark Supergroup* Quartzose and feldspathic siltstone, sandstone, and conglomuate with Triassic some dark colored shale wfr caal, and with diabase infrusions of mainly Jurassic age; fluvial and lacustine environrnents. III III:--IIIII III IIITTI-III-I-II-I-- Harlan Formation Mainly feldspathic and quarEose sandstone; river channels and other fluvial environments.

Wise Formationx Quartzose, feldspathic, micacmus sandstone, siltstone, and shale with abundant coat deltaic with local marine limestone and shale beds.

Similarto the Wise Formation.

o tr Lee Formation: repetitious - : quartzosg ^() ose sandstone and some interbed. feldspathic sandstone, siltstone, ded siltstone, shale,and coal; shale and coalwith some congl* marine barrier bars and also deltas. merates; deltaic. Mississippian and Pennsylvanian

Pocahontas Formation* Sandstone, siltstone, and shale with coal: deltaic.

Bluestone Formation Mainly gray and red shale with some sandstone and subgraywacke and little coal and limestone; bay and lagoonal.

Conglomerate and sandstone; barrier bar.

Hinton Formation Reddish. calcareous shale and siltstone and interbedded sandstone: barrier bars and delta, intergrown.

Grayish shale and interbedded limestone with some coal; bay and delta. qo o a Fossiliferous, crystalline and oolitic limestone; shallow, marine shelf.

Maccrady Shale Red shale with some sandstone, siltstone, salt, and gypsum; lagmnal and deltaic.

Price Formation* Sandstone, siltstone, shale, and coal - loeally conglomeratic; marine barrier bay, lagoonal, and deltaic.

Chattanooga Shale, Big Stone Black shale and siltstone; bay. GapMember

Chemung Formation Sandstone, shale, siltstone, and some conglomeraie; shallow marine and deltaic.

I After Englund (1979)

* Onetime or currently important coal producing interval in Virginia. l0 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

K ilomelers

Figure 8. Generalized geologic map of southwest Virginia showing Mssissippian and Pennsylvanian strata and major folds and faults. been captured by easnvard flowing streams so that they now drain the Chattanooga, or in places over shallow marine deposits of across the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Atlantic Ocean. The the Chemung Formation. The Price consists of units ranging nanscent New River evidently continued its course and its from coarse, clean, quartz-pebble conglomerate to glauconitic existence by building deltas westward into the sea and by flowing shale and siltstone. The Cloyd Conglomerate at the base of the on them, built its way westward. The course of the New River Price marks the beginning of the Alleghanian orogeny in came to extend across the entire mid+ontinent and did so for Virginia. These coarse deposits represent longshore bars hundreds of millions of years until it was dammed by glacial ice growing just offshore in an inland sea. Later in the Price during the Pleistocene Epoch, at which time it, and other dammed depositional cycle, deltas grew out over the bars (Figures 9, streams, formed the Ohio River. 10). To the west of the deltas and locally between delta lobes, The general surface distribution of Mississippian-age rocks were silt and mud containing and marine organ- in Vkginia is shown on the map in the pocket. In the Valley and isms. Still later, peat that was in the future to become the Valley Ridge province, therocks are generally deformed by thrust faults coal accumulated in ancient swamps from Botetourt to Smyth and folds, and thus the outcrop patterns of the rocks are convo- Counties as the sea was forced farther west. The Price peats, luted and disjointed. To the west, within the province of the which extended into eastern West Virginia, formed the only Appalachian Plateaus, the rocks generally dip westward at low to commercial Mississippian-age coal in Virginia. moderate angles. Mississippian-age rocks form the basal ex- As the land was eroded and as subsidence in the basin posed units of the Alleghany Front at the provincial boundary continued, delta deposits ofsilt and clay, turned red by subaerial between the Valley and Ridge and the Appalachian Plateaus oxidation of iron, dried and cracked by a blistering sun, grew out provinces. over the swamps and peat. At one place, salt and gypsum formed Some details of the and the environments of in an evaporating lagoon alongside the deltas. These clastics and deposition forCartoniferous time follow. The earliestMississip- evaporites, together with some nearshore, marine limestone and pian-age deposits in Virginiabelongto theChattanooga Shale, a dolostone, make up the . deposit representing Late Devonian through Eady Mississippian Preserved rock-salt deposits of the Maccrady Formation, time. The Chattanooga is a dark-gray mudrock formed in basins which are all underground and protected from circulating withlow -salinity to normal-marine waters and stagnantbottoms. groundwater by overlying impervious rock, reach post-depo- Because there is no lithologic change and no erosional surface at sitional thickness of perhaps 500 feet (Whittington, 1965) and the Mississippian-Devonian boundary, the division of the sys- known thickness of 200 feet (Stose, 1913) along a 2O-mile- tems of rock is defined in Virginia on the occunence of assem- long belt in Smyth and Washington Counties. At Saltville, blages of an odd groupof extinct organisms known as conodonts. brine was mined from the late 1700s until 1971. The gypsum' The Price Formation, which is named for exposures in which lies above the rock salt and along strike is locally Price Mountain in Montgomery County, Virginia, lies above exposed there, and is mined by United States Gypsum Com- PUBLICATION 149 11

(/r4r>oFT-rssrffir,rrv-JsO\ ,;9./, il PENNSYLVANIAN xlr

,''/:fr ,"/ / l58En9lT,S

Figure 9. General position of seas and lands in eastern United States during Carboniferous time. The entire area shown was land, except for the Pocahontas basin, in Early Pennsylvanian time. Later, the Middle Pennsylvanian inland sea invaded the areas as far north as northwestern Ohio. After several sources in Donaldson and others (1979). Cross sectionA- A': I - Price Formation barrier bar, trangressive; 2 - Maccrady Formation deltaic redbeds, regressive; 3 - Greenbrier Limestone marine, transgressive; 4 -UpperMississippian shale and sandstone,regressive;5 - LeeFormationbarrierbar, transgressive;6 - Pocahontas deltaicdeposits including coaliT - Pocahontas sea. pany. At l,ocust Cove in Smyth County the gypsum occurs as Washington County. Limestone that formed in isolated blocks up to 200 feet long. The blocks represent the sea is largely a clastic limestone made up of oolites, shell formerly layered masses broken apart by movement on the hash of chiefly and stems, together with some Saltville fault. At Plasterco in Washington County the gypsum calyxes of these forms, bryozoans, and brachipods. Today, occurs in broken and layered masses along and below the oolites form in the warm, clear hypersaline waters of the Saltville fault. The Maccrady Formation reaches a thickness of Bahama Platform southeast of Andros Island where calcium some 1600 feet partly as a result of plastic flow of the salts in carbonate is precipitated repeatedly on nucleii rolled by wind- the unit. The flow was caused by the stresses induced by and tide-forced currents and waves. We can imagine that at faulting and associated folding. times during deposition of the Late Mississippian-age Green- Following the development of the tidal and shallow ma- brier Formation that the nearshore sea was teeming with life rine Maccrady deposits; the sea gained ascendancy once again where deeper waters of the sea upwelled and where life and the water of the Greenbrier sea swept eastward beyond the assembled in reefy masses. Farthef shoreward, and at times present valley of the North Fork of the Holston River in throughout the whole shallow platform stretching from Vir- t2 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOI.JRCES

The uppermost part of the Bluestone grades along strike into gray, poody sorted, micaceous sandstones of the Pocalnntas Formation, which contains the fossil fern, Neuropteris pocahontas, an Early Pennsylvanian-age form. Here once again is a boundary problem. As in the Chattanooga Shale discussed earlier, where deposition is continuous across a geologic time boundary, some arbitrary method must be used to divide the rocks as to which lie above and which below the boundary plane. The containing Neuropteris pocahontas and age-equivalent parts ofthe Blue- stone are considered to be Early Pennsylvanian-age. General environments during Late Bluestone-Eady Pocahontas time are similar to those of Price time shown in Figure 9. The delta-building of Early Pennsylvanian time began with deposition of the sand of the Pocahontas Formation. This sand was supplied by the anceshal New River and related streams whose head-waters lay in the mountains forming to the east of the deltas. As the basin continued to subside, sand, mud and peat formed in the swamps on the delta plain. In front of the deltas were longshore bars and to the northwest, the swamps were not inundated by sea water. There are seven coal beds in the Pocahontas Formation (twoadditional "Pocahontas" coals, numbers 8 and9, areinthe New River Formation) and one of these, "Pokie 3," is the most produced coal in Virginia. This coal, which was frst mined 108 years ago at Pocahontas, Virgini4 in Tazewell County, is known throughout the world because of its purity and its excellent coking quality. These characteristics make it aprime metallurgical or'tnet" coal. It was mined extensively in northern Tazewell County from 1883 into the 1950s. An exhibition mine near the town of Pocahontas and reclaimed Figwe 10. kndardseaofpartoffteAppalachianbasindningEarly strip benches near the mine are among the few obvious remind- Mississippian tfune wtlen thePrie Fmrnation was being &posited. ers of western Virginia's first coal production; some 224.9- Dagonallineistlrcapproximatelocationoftlepaleoequalor. Depos- million shorttons ofthe Pokie 3 remain as reserves inTazewell its in fte Ohio Bay are represented by trc Charanmga black shale. County. More than 25-million short tons of reserves are in After de Witt and Mc Grew (199). Buchanan County. The value ofPocahontas No. 3 is reflected in the efforts used to mine it through deep shafts sunk some ginia into the western mid-continent, wave-agiCated, water 1200 feet below the surface in Buchanan County. These enriched in mineral matter by partial evaporation produced mining operations, begun in 1970, had produced about 139- growing oolites intermixed with shells of lifeless organisms, million tons of coal by 1996 (data fromVirginia Department of especially crinoid stems. This is the last time that the sea Labor and Industry, various issues; and Department of Mines, extended beyond the area we know as the Appalachian Pla- Minerals and Energy files). teaus to reach into the area of the Valley and Ridge province, Following deposition of the Pocahontas Formation, and itis also the lasttime that amajorPaleozoic-age limestone longshore-bar sand of the Lee Formation dvanced over an formed in Virginia. eroded surface ofthe Pocahontas and Bluestone Formations and The Bluefield Formation, which conformably overlies the intertongued with the developing deltaof the New RiverForma- Greenbrier, contains wholly marine and marginally marine to tion and the lagoonal and coastal swamp deposits of the Norton continental deposits, including some thin coal beds and tracks Formation. Both the Norton andNew RiverFormations contain of a vertebrate that probably represent an amphibian important, commercially mined coal beds. The Pocahontas and (Humphreville, 1981). New River Formations together have 19 producing coal beds. Another major uplift of the hinterland is reflected in the The Norton Formation contains fine' to coane-glained basal deposits of the , which consist of a sedimentary rocks which generally contain quartz and feldspar. nearly purequartz sandstone indicating a stable shelf on which At least 13 named coals occur within the Norton in Virginia. waves could winnow clay from sand. Higher in the Hinton are These marginal marine to lower dela-plain sediments of the red siltstone, sand, shale, thin coal beds, and another pure Norton are ovedain by a massive sandstone which is locally quartz sandstone. These deposits of the Hinton are ovedain by feldspathic. This roch which represens an ancient bar deposit" dark-gray and mottled shale of the . This is up to 120 feet thick and is an important marker bed where it brackish to marine shale is overlain by other marginal marine occurs in Pennsylvanian-age strata of Virginia. The overlying deposits of the Bluestone, which includes a red member Wise Formation rcpresents a chiefly continental depositional containing continental beds. Thin coal beds representing sequerrce similar to tlre Norton. The Wise contains slightly mue coastal swamps are found in two units of the Bluestone sandstone tran tlp Norto4 and also contains two thin unia bearing Formation. mryinefossils(Eby, l923;Engluttd, 1979). BothtpNortonandWise PT'BLICATION I49 13

Table 2. Coal production for the seven producing counties (in millions of short tons) in Virginia for 1996t.

Formation Buchanan Wise Dickenson Tazewell Russell I.ee Total

Wise t.64 r0.22 0.75 2.49 14;10

Norton 3.09 2.O9 1.68 0.53 7.93

Lee/ New River 2.M 0.82 0.44 2.44 0.65 6.39

Pocahontas 7.92 7.92

Total 14.69 13.13 2.87 2.44 1.18 2.09 36.40 rData from Virginia Division of Mines annual report for 1996.

Formations have sandstons that can be usd as rnarker beds over America toward each other. During this uplift, sediment which sizeable areas @by, 1923; Nolde and Mtchell, 1984). had accumulated through eons of time began to buckle and rise The Norton Formation has 11 producing coal beds; the above the sea's surface. Thus, sediment on the outer part ofthe Wise has 27. Some details of production for these and other growing continent became sources of sediment to be deposited formations, listed by county, are in Table 2. in the inland sea to the west of the developing highlands. As compression of sediment continued, deeper parts of the trough AND MOI.'NTAINS floor, or earlier raised parts of it, were brought up over the younger and unmetamorphosed sediment to the west. Thus, Faults. folds. andpuzzles: The Harlan Formation represents the the Blue Ridge Mountains were born. youngest Paleozoic-age rock in Virginia. It contains fluvial Uplift of the Appalachian Mountains continued for iens of sandstone, conglomerate, siltstone, mudrock, and thin coal beds millions of years, as is evidenced by the transgressive and @nglund, 1979). The basal sandstone is in deep channels cut into regressive phases of the deposits of Carboniferous time of older beds, which indicates uplift during early Harlan time. southwestern Virginia. During episodes of active uplift, the Both the origin and the mechanics of structural growth of the region would have been repeatedly shaken by earthquakes as Appalachian Mountains are today, after more than 150 years of $eat blocks of rock were forced upward and outward from the study, in debate. The reason for the uncertainty is that new and zone of continental collision lying east of the present edge of the reborn ideas arejust now supplanting the ideas that were con- Piedmont province. Some of the fault zones in the Piedmont ceived, evolved, andrefinedoveraperiodofsome l00years. The province are today areas of small magnitude earthquakes. dying concept is called the geosynclinal theory of mounlain An idea of the scale of the motion on these Late Paleozoic- building; it is being replaced by plate tectonics, a much more age faults can be gained from looking at the Pine Mountain thrust extensive and pervasive ft*ry, and one backed with more sheet, which is bounded on the westby the Pine Mountain and on compelling evidence. In the minds of most geologists the argu- the east by the Hunter Valley or related faults (Figure 8, Plate 1). ment is firmly settled on the side of plate tectonics. The trace of the Pine Mountain fault extends north some l0 miles Rocks in the Valley and Ridge province have been intensely beyond the Russell Fork fault and south to the Jacksboro fault in deformed during late Paleozoic-age folding and faulting as is . East-west rotational movement along the Russell reflected in the distribution of the Mssissippian-age shata of this Forkfaultis 2to4miles. ThePineMountain thrust sheetiseroded area" Farther west, in the Appalachian Plateaus province, folding to the northwest and is covered by other fault sheets to the was less severe, buthere as elsewhere in Virgini4 paleozoic-age southeast. It was originally much larger, and much larger sheets rocks were transported westward on thrustplanes, ordecollements, exist to the east--the Blue Ridgq Pulaski, and Saltville fault sheets during the Alleghany orogeny. Displacement along the are examples. decollements, which were originally nearly planar and nearly Decollement surfaces in Virginia are found within the early horizontal or gently inclined surfaces, in places amounts to tens Paleozoic-age Rome (Early Cambrian) and the Martinsburg of miles. An example of a very large displacement is at the Blue (Late ) Formations and the late Paleozoic-age Chatta- Ridge Mountains where crystalline rocks were brought up over nooga Shale and the Maccrady Formation. Locally, coal beds Paleozoic-age sediments of the Valley and Ridge province. within the several Carboniferous-age formations serve as Some of the decollements were folded as a result of relatively decollements. late-stage faulting in the Alleghany orogeny. The pine Mountain Regionally, along strike, progress of the faults was inrpeded fault is an example of such a folded fault. Its trace can be seen at as rock masses piled up, as local resistance was encountered, or the surface in structural windows near Big Stone Gap. :N pore prcssure was lost. In such plases, the faults broke across The sequence of deformational events for late paleozoic competent rock layers as ramps and then continued as bedding- time is currently thought to have proceeded generally as plane faults at higher levels. It was such ramp transport on the follows. In Early Carboniferous time compressional uplift Pine Mountain thrust fault, that created the Powell Valley anti- began in response to the closing of the proto-Atlantic ocean as cline and the Middlesboro syncline (Figure 8). the result of rafting of western Africa and eastern North Among the other thrust faults shown on Plate I and Figure l4 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

8, the Hunter Valley or St. Paul fault is noteworthy. Near the River at Big Stone Gap and the North Fork of the Powell River town of St. Paul, marine limestone of Cambrian age is juxta- at Pennington Gap (Figure l4). posed with coal-bearing rocks of the Pennsylvanian-ageNorton Appalachian Plateaus province canyons were cut when Formation. The coal is mined along the fault contact at several early streams began renewed downcutting as the result of Meso- places in the area near the Clinch River. There the old meets zoic- and Cenozoic-age elevator-like uplift of the area. The view the "new" in a dramatic and commercially important way of the Tower shown in Figure i3 includes a meander of Russell where rocks of the Valley and Ridge Province were brought Fork which nearly had been cut off before uplift forced the stream forcibly against the rocks of the Appalachian Plateaus along a to cut chiefly downward rather than allow it to migrate laterally. faulted region of the Alleghany structural front, which for the area in general lies just east of the outcrop belt of the Lee Formation (Figure l1).

Figure 12. Watergap of the New River nearNarrows, Virginia.

Figure I l. Cross-bedded quartz sandstone ofthe Early Penn- sylvanian-age Lee Formation at Cumberland Gap. Looking east at Powell Valley from Cumberland Mountain.

A VIRGINIA CANYON I-AND Trails of the frontier

Through all this upheaval, the ancestral New Riverevidently stayed "constant as the North Star." Most streams with headwa- ters in the Appalachian Plateaus now drain westward toward the Gulf of Mexico. Streams north of about 37oN latitude in the Virginia plateaus empty into the New River; those to the south Figure 1 3. The Tower, comprised of Lee Formation sandstone, flow into the French-Broad-Tennessee drainage system. The rises above a meander in the Russell Fork River as seen from Clinch River is a Valley and Ridge Province stream that borden the rim at Breaks Interstate Park. The hidden part of the plateaus province the in Wise County. It heads north of 37'N, meander lies in the valley seen just to the left of the Tower. flows south along the Alleghany front (the eastern border of the Applachian Plateaus) into northeastem Scott County. From Scott The topography of southwestern Virginia has always County it swings farther east into the Valley and Ridge province, made it difficult to cross. The water gaps are sites of major and eventually joins the French-Broad-Tennessee system by highways and railways today, and were formedy important way of the Holston River. The New River flows out of Virginia migration routes for western settlers of early America. The just north of Bluefield in a series of spectacular water-chiselled best known early route into and through the area was Wilder- canyons (Figure l2). ness Road, now U.S. Highway 58, a frontier trail extended by As stated earlier, the James and the Potomac Rivers flow Daniel Boone and some 30 axmen into the bluegrass area of eastward through the Valley and Ridge Province on their way what was in colonial times part of western Virginia. to the Atlantic Ocean. At the Blue Ridge Mountains they cut Wildemess Road lay near the Alleghany front west from canyons, or water gaps, tkough the crystalline rocks of the Pennington Gap and passed through Cumbedand Gap where Vir- mountain mass: the gorge is just east of Natural ginia wedges between Kentucky and Tennessee at the Bridge and the Potomac's is at Harpers Feny. Appalachian southwestemmostpafi of tlrc state. This gap (Figures 8 and 15) was Plateaus streams are not as well known to as many people as are important enough as a migration route to be the site of a National the James and Potomac Rivers. but these western streams have Historical Park. NowaterflowsthroughCumberlandGap; itisawind cut impressive canyons at several places. Examples are on gap, which possibly represents a formerchannel of thePowell River. Russell Fork at Breaks Interstate Park (Figure l3), the Powell The river is now located a few miles east of the gap. l4 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

8, the Hunter Valley or St. Paul fault is noteworthy. Near the River at Big Stone Gap and the North Fork of the Powell River town of St. Paul, marine limestone of Cambrian age is juxta- at Pennington Gap (Figure l4). posed with coal-bearing rocks of the Pennsylvanian-ageNorton Appalachian Plateaus province canyons were cut when Formation. The coal is mined along the fault contact at several early streams began renewed downcutting as the result of Meso- places in the area near the Clinch River. There the old meets zoic- and Cenozoic-age elevatorJike uplift of the area. The view the "new" in a dramatic and commercially important way of the Tower shown in Figure 13 includes a meander of Russell where rocks of the Valley and Ridge Province were brought Fork which nearly had been cut offbefore uplift forced the stream forcibly against the rocks ofthe Appalachian Plateaus along a to cut chiefly downward rather than allow it to migrate laterally. faulted region of the Alleghany structural front, which for the area in general lies just east of the outcrop belt of the Lee Formation (Figure ll).

Figure 12. Water gap of theNew RivernearNarrows, Virginia.

Figure I 1 Cross-bedded quartz sandstone of the Early Penn- sylvanian-age Lee Formation at Cumberland Gap. Looking east at Powell Valley from Cumberland Mountain.

A VIRGINIA CANYON LAND Trails of the frontier

Tbrough all this upheaval, the ancestral New Riverevidently stayed "constant as the North Star." Most streams with headwa- ters in the Appalachian Plateaus now drain westward toward the Gulf of Mexico. Streams north of about 37"N latitude in the Virginia plateaus empty into the New River; those to the south Figure I 3. The Tower, comprised of Lee Formation sandstone, flow into the French-Broad-Tennessee drainage system. The rises above a meander in the Russell Fork River as seen from Clinch River is a Valley and Ridge Province stream that borders the rim at Breaks Interstate Park. The hidden part of the plateaus province the in Wise County. It heads north of 37'N, meander lies in the valley seen just to the left of the Tower. flows south along the Alleghany front (the eastern border of the Applachian Plateaus) into northeastern ScottCounty. From Scott The topography of southwestern Virginia has always County it swings farther east into the Valley and Ridge province, made it difficult to cross. The water gaps are sites of major and eventually joins the French-Broad-Tennessee system by highways and railways today, and were formerly important way of the Holston River. The New River flows out of Virginia migration routes for western settlers of eady America. The just north of Bluefield in a series of spectacular water-chiselled best known early route into and through the area was Wilder- canyons (Figure 12). ness Road, now U.S. Highway 58, a frontier trail extended by As stated earlier, the James and the Potomac Rivers flow Daniel Boone and some 30 axmen into the bluegrass area of eastward through the Valley and Ridge Province on their way what was in colonial times part of western Virginia. to the Atlantic Ocean. At the Blue Ridge Mountains they cut Wildemess Road lay near the Alleghany front west from canyons, or water gaps, though the crystalline rocks of the Pennington Gap and passed through Cumberland Gap where Vir- mountain mass: the James River gorge is just east of Natural ginia wedges between Kentucky and Tennessee at the Bridge and the Potomac's is at Harpers Ferry. Appalachian southwesternmost part of the Sate. This gap @gures 8 and I 5) was Plateaus streams are not as well known to as many people as are important enough as a migation route to be the site of a National the James and Potomac Rivers, butthese western streams have Historical Park. No waterflows throughCumberlandGap; itisawind cut impressive canyons at several places. Examples are on gap, which possibly represents a former channel of the Powell River. Russell Fork at Breaks Interstate Park (Figure 13), the Powell The river is now located a few miles east of the gap. PUBLICATION 149 15

Figure 14. The "Old Man of the Mountain" as seen looking northeast in Pennington Gap of the North Fork Powell River.

Figure 16. The Gladeville Sandstone as seen on Wilderness Road (U.S. Highway 58A) a few miles east of Norton, Vir- ginia. The Gladeville is a massive, erosion-resistant unit lying Figure 15. A view westward of Cumberland Mountain and the at the base of the Wise Formation. cloud-shrouded Cumberland Gap. This gap is dry, being the site of a captured stream whose waters were pirated away. Itwould seemreasonablethatanupwrap, oranticline, would Wilderness Trail passes through the gap. be a mountain rather than a valley, but the name of the fold, Powell Valley anticline, suggests that this thought is in error. The valley, in the center of the anticline, is defined by two mountains, Powell Plateaus are by definition broad, table-top lands, and are Mountain on the east and Little Stone Mountain on the west; the consequently areas that are underlain by nearly horizontal rock slopes are capped and armored by the Greenbrier and Lee strata. In the folded rocks of the Valley and Ridge province, price Formations. Examples of anticlinal valleys are commonplace in Formation sandstones and Greenbrier limestones are ridge and Virginia andelsewhere in the folded mountain belts of the world. ledge formers. At the Alleghany front, these same formations, Associated synclinal areas forrn adjoining mountains. A partial together with sandstones in the Hinton Formation, produce answer to this geological riddle is that as folds rise above sea level, mountainous terrain atplaces where they are steeply upturned to anticlines are attacked by eroding streams more than synclines. the east; examples are Little Stone Mountain and Powell Moun- The initially higher elevation and numerous fractures in the tain in the area of Big Stone Gap. Farther west in Virginia, these competent rocks of anticlines make them more susceptible to formations are deep in the subsurface. Major cliff- and ledge- erosion than synclines. Additionally, debris eroded from the forming rocks in the Appalachian Plateaus province are the Lee, anticline tends to armor the flanks ofadjacent synclines. In short, chiefly, and the Gladeville or similar sandstone formations drainage is established early on anticlines and increased uplift (Figures 11 and 16). entrenches it. One anticline, the Sequatchie anticline of Tennes- The Appalachian Plateaus province is split in Lee and see, forms both a mountain and a valley along the axis of the fold. Scott Counties where exposed rocks of the powell Valley In the valley, stream erosion has breached the fold; it has not yet anticline (Figure 8) appear to cleave the area with Early eroded the higher areas ofthe fold. Paleozoic-age rocks of the Valley and Ridge province. The topographic expression of this flexure belies its structural development, which has already been discussed. PUBLICATION 149 l5

Figure 14. The "Old Man of the Mountain" as seen looking northeast in Pennington Gap of the North Fork Powell River.

Figure 16. The Gladeville Sandstone as seen on Wilderness Road (U.S. Highway 58A) a few miles east of Norton, Vir- ginia. The Gladeville is a massive, erosion-resistant unit lying Figure 15. A view westward of Cumberland Mountain and the at the base of the Wise Formation. cloud-shrouded Cumberland Gap. This gap is dry, being the site of a captured stream whose waters were pirated away. It would seemreasonablethatan upwrap, oranticline, would Wilderness Trail passes through the gap. be a mountain ratherthan avalley, butthe name of the fold, Powell Valley an ticline, suggests that this thought is in enor. The valley, in thecenterof theanticline, is definedby two mountains, Powell Plateaus are by defrnition broad, table-top lands, and are Mountain on the east and Little Stone Mountain on the west; the consequently areas tbat are underlain by nearly horizontal rock slopes are capped and armored by the Greenbrier and Lee strata. In the folded rocks of the Valley and Ridge province, price Formations. Examples of anticlinal valleys are cornmonplace in Formation sandstones and Greenbrier limestones are ridge and Virginia and elsewhere in the folded mountain belts of the world. ledge formers. At the Alleghany front, these same formations, Associated synclinal areas forrn adjoining mountains. A partial together with sandstones in the Hinton Formation, produce answerto this geological riddle is that as folds rise above sea level, mountainous terrain atplaces where they are steeply upturned to anticlines are attacked by eroding streams more than synclines. the east; examples are Little Stone Mountain and Powell Moun- The initially higher elevation and numerous fractures in the tain in the area of Big Stone Gap. Farther west in Virginia, these competent rocks of anticlines make them more susceptible to formations are deep in the subsurface. Major cliff- and ledge- erosion than synclines. Additionally, debris eroded from the forming rocks in the Appalachian Plateaus province are the Lee, anticlinetends to armorthe flanks of adjacent synclines. In short, chiefly, and the Gladeville or similar sandstone formations drainage is established eady on anticlines and increased uplift (Figures l1 and 16). entrenches it. One anticline, the Sequatchie anticline of Tennes- The Appalachian Plateaus province is split in Lee and see, forms both a mountain and a valley along the axis of the fold. Scott Counties where exposed rocks of the powell Valley In the valley, stream erosion has breached the fold; it has not yet anticline (Figure 8) appear to cleave the area with Early eroded the hisher areas ofthe fold. Paleozoic-age rocks of the Valley and Ridge province. The topographic expression of this flexure belies its structural development, which has already been discussed. l6 VIRGINIA DTVISION OF MINERAL RESOT'RCF.S

RICHMOND COAL Blackheath basin. The coals were mined by shafts (vertical A New Creation entries) andby slopes (tunnels intothebeds). Sorneof tte shafts were to dqrtlrs of over tfiB feet (Wilkes, 1988). It is difficult to The rock histo'ry for the Appalachian Mountains essentially imagine tlp extreme hardships irnposed by the conditions of ends in late Paleozoic time, except for a small depositional basin ririning in the shafts, often full of methane gase and coal dust An in northwestem West Virginia and adjacent parts of Ohio and excellent account of coal miningconditions in the United Stales Pennsylvania, no deposits as young as age are preserved. in the early 1S0s is by Husband (1911). h Virginia the latest Paleozoic-age deposits are Middle Pennsyl- The climate during formation of theMesozoic basins was vanian. What we know about the Appalachian Morintains after probably seasonally wet and dry as is common today in the Paleozoic time is inferred from stream terrace deposits along mid-tropics, where Virginia lay in Triassic time. Paleomag- valley walls on flanks of mountains, from landforms of the netic data show that southem Virginia was at about 17'N region, and from deposits lying in basins formed where the Iatitude in &ose days. Formerly, in Carboniferous time, previous mountains once stood. A number of large basins of this Virginia was south of the equator at abut 5'S latitude. When type formed as a direct result of normal faulting within the the area drifted north as the result of sea- floor spreading, Piedmont province from Nova Scotia to Alabama during climatic conditions changed. By latest Triassic time the Triassic and Jurassic time. Prominent Mesozoic-agebasins in journey northward had moved Virginia into the geographic Virginia are shown in Figure 1. The intensity of deformation zone of the topical convergence, a z,ctne of desert-forming of the erystallinerocks comprising the Piedmontprovince and climate, which is reflected in the Triassic-age deposits by the the occurrence in them of high-grade metamorpiic minerals, ending of lakes and coal swamps in the basins. including garnet and kyanite which form at high pressures, fossils in the basins. which are rare and found indicate that many of the rocks now exposed in the Virginia mainly in the fine-gained deposits of the lakes and swamps at Piedmont province were buried beneath miles of other rocks - their margins, include fishes, dinosaurs, phytosaur reptiles, tlese were mainly volcanic or sedimentary. Erosion probably various shelled crustaceans, and a variety of insects (Weems, had strip@ the Piedmont province of its mountains by the 1982; Olsen and others, 1978, Plate 6). time the basins formed. Relief on the crystalline rocks of the basin floors, as seen beneath the overlying Mesozoic-age sediments by use of reflection seismology, is small where REFERENCES CITED observed. The faulted margins of the basins and the common occur- Bird, S.O., 1986, Coal in water: Fuel of the future: Virginia Division of rence of diabase dikes and sills in them and their general Mineral Resources, Virginia Minerals, v. 32, n. 3,p.21-26. similarity to the EastAfrican Rift System and otherrift syslems Cecil, C.B., StantorL R., Dulorg F.T., and Cohen, A.D., 1979, Experimenal indicate that these eastern North American basins are a result coalification af Taxadium peat from the Okefenokee Swanrp, Geolgia in of the latest opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The extensional Donaldson, Alan and otlren, eds., Carboniferous Coal Guidebook, v. 3: West stresses revealed by the patterns ofthe faults and the cornposi- Virginia Geological and Econonic Survey, p. 1?9-141. tions of the intrusives lend to support this idea. The basins were de Wifi, Wallace, Jr., ard McCrrew' L.W., tCrg, TIE Appalachian basinrcgiol irt no at time flooded by the sea. After formation of the basins, kleotec'tor{c investigoiors oftheMississippianSyffinintpUnibdstes,pafi l: spreading along the developing Mid-Atlantic ridge established U.S. Geologkral Survey Professional hper l0lSG, p. 1348. the Atlantic Ocean. Then marine sediments were deposited on what is now the Coastal Plain. East of the fall line the marine Donaldson, Alan, Presley, M.W., and Renton, J.J., eds., 1979, Carboniferous coal guidebook, 3 volumes: West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey deposits covered the down-faulted basins formed in the ancient Bulletin B-37-(I-3). Piedmont province and on the . The continental sediments of theMesozoic-age Piedmont Drake, A.A., 1983, Pre-Taconian deformation inthe Piedmontof the Potornac province basins included coarse conglomerates and sands at Valley - Penobscotian or Cadomian or both (abs.): Virginia Joumal of Science, v. 34,p. l7O. their faulted margins arid finer deposits of silt and clay toward their centers. Some basins contained lmge lakes in which thick Eby, J.8., 193, Ttre geology and mineral resources of Wise County and the deposits of black shale accumulated. coal-beaing portion of Scott County, Virginia: Virginia Geologieal Survey Fourof Virginia's Mesozoic-age basins have some coal, but Bulletin 24, 617 p. significant quantities are found in only the Richmond basin. The Englun4 K.J., 1979, The Mississippian and Pennsylvaniaa (Carboniferous) coal beds are late, but not latest, Triassic age. These coals, which Systems in the United States - Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey hofessional represents swamps adjacent to fresh water lakes, were developed Paper I I l0-C, p. Cl-C21. from dffierent plant species than those that formed the Paleozoic- age coals. The lycopods, Lepidodendron and Sigillaria. as well Humphrcville, R.G., 1981, Stratigraphy and paleoecology of the Uppe Bbcksburg, Vir- as the rush Calamites and many other of the important coal- Mississippian Bluefield Forrnation [Ph-D. dissertation]: ginia Potytechnic Institute and State University, 365 p. forming plants of the Paleozoic Era were extinct by Triassic time. Plants that are thought to be important in the formation of Husban4 Joseph, l9l l, A year in a coal-mine, New York, Houghton-Mifflin Triassic-age coal are gymnosperms, large cycads, various coni- Co., 171 p. (reprinted by Arno Press krc., 1977). fers, ferns, small lycopods, and equisetid rushes. Records of coal beds in the east-cenral part of the Richmond Kreisa R.D., and Bambach, R.K., 1973, Environments of deposition of tbe Price Formation (Iower Mississippian) in its type area, southwestem Vir- basin indicate that sone of the beds, which have since been mined ginru in Bymn Cooper Vohmre: American Jornnal of Scierce, v. 273-A, p. out, were as much as 40 feet thick according to Colonel William 326-342. Byrd, their discoverer; Lyell reported 50 feet ofcoal in the PT]BLICATION I49 t7

Nolde J. E., and Mitchell, M. L., 1984, Geology of the Prater and Vansanl Ben-Avraham, Zvi, 1981, The movement of continents: American Scientist, quadrangles, Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication v.69,p.291-299. 52,28p. Brown, Andrcw, BerryhillH.L, Jr.,Taylor,DA., adTnunbuLJ.V.A., 1952, Coal Oaks, R.Q., Jr., and Coch, N.K., 1973, Post-Miocene stratigraphy and mor- rcsources of Virginia: U.S. Ccological Survey Circular 171,57 p. phology, southeastem Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Bulletin 82, 135 p. Campbell, M.R., andothers, l925,The Valley coal f,reldsofVirginia: Virginia Geological Survey Bulletin 25,322 p. Olsen, P.E., Cornet, Bruce, and Thomson, K.S., 1978, Cyclic change in [,are Triassic lacustrine communities: Science, v. 201, p. 729:733. Cooper, B.N., 1966, Geology of the salt and gypsum deposits in the Salwille area, Smyth and Washington Counties, Virginia, rn Symposiurn on salt Stanley, C.8., and Schultz, A. P., 1983, Coal bed methane resource evaluation (second): Northem Ohio Geological Society, v. I, p. I l-34. Montgomery County, Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 46, 59 p. Dapples,8.C., and Hopkins, M.E., eds., 1969, Environments of coal deposi- tion: Geological Society of America Special Paper 114,204 p. Stose, G.W., 1913, Geology of salt and gypsum deposits of southwestem Virginia: Virginia Geological Survey Bulletin 8, p. 5l-73. Dunbar, C.O., and Waage, K.M., 1969, Historical Geology, 3rd edition: NewYork, Wiley, 556 p. Sweet, P. C., and Nolde, 1.8., 1997, Coal, oil and gas, and metallic and indusfial minerals industries in Virginia 1996: Virginia Division of Mineral Energy Information Administration (U.S. Department of Energy), 1983, Resources Publication 150 [In Press]. Monthly energy review, December (l) issue: Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 109 p. Trent, V.A., Medlin, J.H., Coleman, S.L., and Stanton, R.W., 1982, Chemical Englund, K.J., and others, eds., I 976, Carboniferous stratigraphy ofsouthwest- analyses andphysical properties of 12 coal samples from the Pocahontas field, em Virginia and southem West Virginia: Geological Society of America Field Tazewell County, Virginia, and McDowell County, West Virginia: U.S. joint Geological Survey Bulletin 1528,37 p. Trip Guide Book No. 3, Northeast-Southeast sections meeting 40 p.

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Virginia Departrnent of Labor and Industry, 1981, Annual report for year Giles, A.W., 1921, The geology and coal resources of Dickenson County, 1980, Division of Mines and Quarries: Richmond, p. 84-110. Virginia: Virginia Geological Survey Bulletin 21, 224 p.

Virginia Departrnent of Labor and Industry, I 984, I 982- I 983 biennial report, Giles, A.W., 1925, The geology and coal resources of the coal-bearingportion Dvision of Mines and Quarries: Richmond, p. 85-l I l. of Lee County, Virginia: Virginia Geological Survey Bulletin 26, 216 p.

Weems, R.E., 1982, Footprints in the Newark Supergroup as a sfatigraphic Gillespie, W.H., Clendening, J.A., and Pfefferkom, H.W., 1978, Plant fossils tool (abs.): Geological Society of America Abstracts with programs, v. 14, p.94. of West Virginia: West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, Educa- tional Series Ed-3A, 172 p.

Whinington, C.F., I 965, Suggestions for prospecting for evaporite deposits in Goodwin, B.K., and Fanell, K., 1979, The geology and coal resources of the southwestem Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper,525-B, p. Richmond Triassic basin: Virginia Dvision of Mineral Resources, Open File 29-33. Repon, 30 p.

Wilkes, G. P., 1988, Mining history of the Richmond coalfield of Virginia: Hamsberger, T.K., 1919, The geology and coal resources of the coal-bearing Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 85, 5l p. portion of Tazewell County, Virginia: Virginia Geological Survey Bulletin, 19, 195 p. Wilkes, G. P., Bragg, L. J., Hostettler, K. K., Oman, C. L., and Coleman, S. ., 1992, Coal sample analyses from the Southwest Virginia coalfield: Virginia Hanis, L.D., 1970, Details of thin-skinned tectonics in parts of Valley and Dvision of Mineral Resources Publication 122, 431 p. Ridge and provinces of the Southem Appalachians, rn Fisher, G.W. and others, eds., Studies of Appalachian geology, central and southem: New York, Wiley, p. 16l-174. SELECTED REFERENCES

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Alvor4 D.C., 1971, Geologic map of fte Hellier quadrangle (KY-VA) and part of Loveft, J.A., Whitloclq W.W., Henika W.S., and Diffenbach, R.N., 1992, Clintwood quadrangle (KY): U.S. Geological Survey Map GQ950 (1 stree$. Geology of the Virginia portion of the Hurley, Panther, Wharncliffe, and Majestic quadrangles: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publicatioa Alvord, D.C., and Miller, R.L' 1972, Geologic map of the Elkhom City 121, l0p. quadrangle (KY-VA): U.S. Geological Survey Map GQ-951 (1 sheet). Meissner, C.R., Jr., 1978, Geologic map of the Duty quadrangle (VA): U.S. Bartholomew, M.J., and Brown, K.L., 1992, The Valley coalfield (Mississip- Geological Survey Map GQ-1458 (l sheet). pian age) in Montgomery and Pulaski Counties, Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 124,33 p. Meissner, C.R., Jr., and Miller, R.L., 1981, Geologic map of the Honaker quadrangle (VA): U.S. Geological Suwey Map GQ-1542 (l sheet). Couzens, B.A., Englund, K.J., and Thomas, R.E., 1991, Geology of the coal- bearing portion of the Tazewell North, TipTop, and Gary quadrangles, map of the Big Stone Gap quadrangle (VA): U.S. Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication I 10, l:24,00G Miller, R.L., I 965, Geologic scale map with text. Geological Survey Map GQ-424 (l sheet).

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Tazelaar, J.F., and Newell, W.L., 1974, Geologic map of the Evarts quadrangle and part of Hubbard Springs quadrangle (KY-VA): U.S. Geological Survey Map GQ-914 (1 sheet).

TRW, Inc., 198O The methane potential from coal seams in the Richmond basin of Virginia: Report prepared forTRW, Inc. by Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univer- sity, under subcontract Hl2l76JJ95, unpaged.

Virginia Division of Mineral Reosurces, 1993, Geologic Map of Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources, scale l:500,000.

Whitlock, W.W., 1989, Geology of the Virginia portion of the Patterson, Bradshaw, and War quadrangles: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 99, l:24,000-scale map with text.

Whitlock, W.W., Lovett, J.A., and Diffenbach, R.N., 1988, Geology of the Wise quadrangle and the coat-bearing portion of the Fort Blackmore quad- rangle, Virginia: Virginia Dvision of Mineral Resources Publication 80, l:24,000-scale map with text. 20 VIRGINIA DTVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

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