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Anatomy of select fluvial deposits in the Mauch Chunk Group, Southern West Virginia, USA

<p> The Mauch Chunk Group has been interpreted as a product of multiple transgressions and regressions (Miller and Eriksson, 2000; Beuthin and Blake, 2004). An outcrop containing the upper Hinton Formation and Princeton Formation, the middle two formations of the Mauch Chunk Group, occurs along US-460 in Princeton, West Virginia, 2.6 kilometers east of the Interstate 77 Princeton exit. In order to understand the sedimentology and depositional history at those outcrops, sedimentologic logs were compiled, facies were identified and bundled into facies associations, photographic panoramas with line drawing overlays were constructed, and rock samples were taken. From the logged sections and facies architecture, a depositional history was interpreted. That history was supplemented with a provenance study where the samples were analyzed with a scanning electron microprobe to document oxide weight percentages. The upper Hinton Formation and the Princeton Formation were deposited through a combination of autocyclic and allocyclic processes. The mineralogy does not conclusively tie the sandstone deposits to the same source; however, mineral identifications did indicate the provenance to be an area with both igneous and metamorphic rocks. The presence of growth faulting indicates that the location of the cross-bedded sandstone that comprises the Princeton Formation at the US-460 outcrop may have been influenced by syn-depositional tectonism.</p><p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10601199
Date12 September 2017
CreatorsMcCreary, Alan Frederick
PublisherThe University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Source SetsProQuest.com
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typethesis

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