NYSGA 2013

1: END-DEVONIAN GEOLOGY IN THE NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA REGION AND HIGHLIGHTS OF NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA GAS-OIL HISTORY
Gordon C. Baird
Department of Geosciences
S.U.N.Y. College at Fredonia
Fredonia, NY 14063
Scott C. McKenzie
Department of Geology
Mercyhurst University
Erie, PA 16546
John A. Harper
Pennsylvania Geological Survey (retired)
Pittsburgh, PA 15222;
Joseph S. Sullivan
293 Burch Avenue
West Seneca, NY.
Introduction
Although early conceptual advances in our understanding of the subsurface geology of northwest Pennsylvania have long figured in the development of the oil and gas industry, our knowledge of outcrop-based geology of this region has generally remained sketchy. A general paucity of long, clean outcrop sections, particularly, in the area east of the Meadville meridian, has hampered attempts to eliminate uncertainties in unit correlations. Why is a better understanding of these strata of interest to the geologist and the informed public?
Herein, we focus on strata that accumulated during the last part of the Devonian time period up to the base of the Mississippian time division (362-359 million years before present). These beds are highly fossiliferous and have yielded new and exotic, undescribed fossils to the diligent collector. Moreover, the end-Devonian time-slice record in Pennsylvania was deposited during a time of mass extinction, drastic changes in climate, and regional tectonism that are only now beginning to be recognized. It is of prime interest to the present authors to establish chronostratigraphic (time-based) connections between the local/regional stratigraphic sections and key paleoclimate-, and extinction-related, signatures recognized globally by others within this interval. Herein, we focus on recent advances in correlation within the end-Devonian – into – earliest Mississippian succession, particularly, since the publication of the 74th Annual Field Conference of Pennsylvania Geologists Guidebook (see Harper 2009) and initiation of westward-directed correlation efforts by Baird and colleagues across northern Ohio.
In addition to the above geological story, we review events that spawned the modern oil and gas industry for which northwest Pennsylvania is globally remembered. Starting at Fredonia in the Empire State (STOP 1), we will examine very early, successful efforts to exploit shallow gas through spring pole drilling and even bedrock fracking techniques that predated the Drake Well event. At STOP 4, we will see the role of various contingent, and highly fortuitous, events that led up to the flow of oil from Colonel Drake’s well. We will also ride the wave of rising expectations, speculation, exploitation, and civic decline that is the legacy of the great city of Pithole if time permits (STOP 5).

1: END-DEVONIAN GEOLOGY IN THE NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA REGION AND HIGHLIGHTS OF NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA GAS-OIL HISTORY

STOP 1. Memorial to earliest drilled gas well
Monument celebrating the drilling of the first gas well drilled in America; spudded annum 1825 in Fredonia, New York.
The small size and plainness of the monument belies the importance of the event it celebrates. We are very close to the site of a commercial gas well that was drilled here in Fredonia in 1825, quite possibly the first gas well drilled in North America or anywhere. According to accounts in the 1825 Fredonia Censor, an entrepreneur by the name of William Hart, came up with the idea of drilling for commercial gas in the local shale (Upper Devonian Gowanda Shale Member of present-day usage) that reeked of gas, which bubbled up through fracture networks (joints) in the floor of Canadaway Creek (Lash and Lash, 2011). Not only did he successfully find gas at a drilled depth of 27 feet, but he was able to transport it by pipe to a containment structure where it could be metered for use by village establishments and individuals. To economically control gas distribution, he developed the Gasometer, a sheet iron container filled with gas that was buoyant within a water-filled, rock-enclosed space; when completely gas-filled, the gasometer would rise to nearly the top of the water-filled space. When gas was drawn off by customers, it would sink, proportionally to discharge and appropriate fees. According to the Censor, two stores, two shops, and a mill had working gas outlets and 36 metered lights were in operation by late 1825 (Lash and Lash, 2011).
By the 1850s, gas use in Fredonia had increased. At this time, another Fredonian by the name of Preston Barmore, with two other associates, set up the Fredonia Natural gas Company Inc. in 1858. Prior to this event Preston had drilled two wells in the shale with only limited success. By noting the escape of the bubbling gas through fracture networks (joints), he came up with the idea of stimulating wells with explosives. In the summer of 1857, using gunpowder, he successfully fracked one of his wells at a depth of 122 feet and greatly increased his yield, two years before Colonel Drake’s experiment (Lash and Lash, 2011). Finally, he set up a well pumping system to remove water from the borehole, thus, securing a considerable increase of gas. By the end of 1858, gas was available in sufficient quantity to meet a vastly greater demand in town (1,200 lights or burners). Fredonia had become a city of light (Lash and Lash, 2012). For his efforts, Preston Barmore could be referred to as “the first petroleum engineer”.

STOP 2. Stratigraphy and paleontology of the classic Union City Dam spillway succession
Stratigraphy. Depart from vehicles and proceed first to spillway overlook. Following discussion of the units, we will proceed down the access road and examine the section from a safe vantage point. We thank the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) for permission to visit the site and to surface collect fossils over the years. For safety reasons the ACE requires advance notice of visits, plus the wearing of hard hats and secure footwear. Because of overhanging sandstone blocks please keep to the center of the spillway.
Top-Chadakoin Formation-base-Venango Group succession. Two key stratigraphic divisions are visible in the 30 meter (95 foot)-thick spillway succession. The main, 25 meter (78 foot)-thick part of the section is the shale-dominated uppermost interval of the Chadakoin Formation. This is abruptly succeeded by an approximately 5 meter (15-17 foot)-thick interval of Panama Sandstone, a massive, quartzose unit which is also known by the driller term “first Venango sand”; prior to recent modifications of this section, the Panama could be seen as a bluff-forming bench along the top of this outcrop. The Panama is the lowest of a long succession of siltstone and sandstone divisions comprising the Venango Group in northwest Pennsylvania.
Top-Chadakoin succession. The top-Chadakoin succession here is exceptionally shaley when compared to the siltstone-dominated, top-Chadakoin succession below the LeBoeuf Sandstone in the Erie, PA area. Moreover, this shale interval is notable for soft-sediment deformation and what appears to be disjunctive cleavage at several levels. However, in the Sherman-Stedman area in western Chautauqua County, essentially identical facies occurs below the Panama Sandstone at sections flowing into French Creek (Baird and Lash, 1990). Because this shale was so very different from typical underlying tempestite-dominated deposits of the Ellicott Member, it was informally termed the “chip cleaved shale” division of the Ellicott succession (Baird and Lash, 1990). The course of French Creek appears to be aligned to end-Chadakoin paleoenvironmental depositional strike as suggested by the distribution of this shale belt.
Panama Sandstone. Although in-situ Panama Sandstone is not accessible here, fall-down debris from it can be sampled. The base of the Panama appears to mark a discontinuity in this area; the contact is knife-sharp and the lithologic discordance with the underlying shale succession is very conspicuous. At the top of the massive sandstone interval is a bed containing quartz pebbles in association with disarticulated valves of the brachiopod Cyrtospirifer. This may mark the base of the succeeding Venango division, known as the Amity Shale; as such this bed may represent a transgressive lag deposit which caps the Panama Sandstone.
Important dam spillway succession fossils. The Chadakoin Formation siltstones and shales exhibit rhythmic sandstone layers that thicken upwards, culminating with the resistant Panama Sandstone that caps the section. The Chadakoin succession is very fossiliferous with many brachiopods, pelecypods, trace fossils and occasional orthocone cephalopods, crinoids and starfish. One fossil frequently seen here is Armstrongia oryx (Figure 9 A), which was originally named Titusvillia drakei (see Caster, 1939). This fossil, once thought to represent a branching glass sponge, is herein reinterpreted as a trace fossil (McKenzie, 2009a). A more complete faunal and floral list is available in the 63rd Pennsylvania guidebook (Harper, 2009).
The horseshoe crab trace fossil Protolimulus eriensis (Figure 9 B) is also found in the Dam spillway. The trace is a deep resting impression faithfully preserving the shape of the horseshoe crabs’ underside raised from the lower side of slabs. Protolimulus seems to be a trace made by horseshoe crabs burrowing in the sediment to escape an influx of fresh water, bright sunlight or uncomfortable temperatures in their near shore marginal marine habitat. Because both large and small Protolimulus are found in close association, we suspect that these traces were not solely associated with egg-laying activity. Protolimulus is also found in south western New York, north east Ohio (Chagrin Shale) and in several north western and central Pennsylvania counties.
The body fossil of a horseshoe crab has been found locally and was referred to Kasibelinurus randalii, (Babcock, et al 1995). This fossil has been compared by James Lamsdell to the original Australian find and is seen to exhibit different morphology which will necessitate a redescription and new name. The body fossils do show sexual dimorphism with the females being slightly larger than the males. Body fossils include enrolled examples that may or may not show free segments on the opithosoma. This body fossil is almost certainly the maker of the Protolimulus traces.
Rarer fossils include ammonoids, Dunkleosteus plates and chondrophore hydrozoans. A very few tabulate corals have been found in the area: Pleurodictyum, an auloporid and a single small Favosites- like coral colony. Corals are extremely rare in the high Devonian (McKenzie 2009b), perhaps reflecting global patterns of diversity reduction observed during the end-Devonian Famennian stage.
In the shaly, lower Venango succession above the Panama Sandstone, we return to an assemblage dominated by numerous brachiopods but lacking horseshoe crabs, hydrozoans and the other unusual fossils. This Lower Venango contact represents a major change in the regional sedimentary environment.
Possible regional astrogeological features. There are three unusual structures in our study area that may be impact craters (Pees and Palmquist, 1983). The first is the Western New York Chautauqua structure that appears as a vague depression with Chautauqua Lake in the center. Some roads run along a ridge that partly defines the rim of the deeply buried structure. NASA astronauts photographed some ring like features partly circling the structure and extending as far as Lake Erie. The second feature is in Warren Co. PA and is centered on the community of Scandia. This structure is partly defined by a noticeable semicircular bend in the Allegheny River. The last is Pymatuning Reservoir, easily seen as a compressed but well defined circular area. Moreover, the Late Devonian Cussewago Sandstone is regionally quite thick in that region. Although these features may pre- or post-date Devonian events and be of non-impact origin, a possibility still exists that one or more may be the result of a bolide event.

STOP 3. Riceville Formation-Orangeville Shale Succession in Cora Clark Park, Meadville, PA.
Depart from vehicles and proceed to trail bordering stream. One of us (Baird) will first deliver a brief overview on the Geology and stop-set-up before leading the group to the stream. We will descend by trail from the downhill (west) corner of the grassed park area to the creek bed. The group will, then, turn right at the creek and proceed to the downstream (west) end of the creek bedrock section. Be careful walking as the bedrock surface may be wet and slippery. The stratigraphic succession presented below is in ascending order of units encountered as one proceeds upstream.
Riceville Formation. The basal 5-meter (16.5 foot) succession on this stream is developed in the upper part of the Riceville Formation. Based on measurements by White (1881) and Caster (1934), the Riceville is about 26 meters (80 feet)-thick at this meridian. However, some of this aggregate thickness includes strata included by us in younger divisions (West Mead Bed, Bennyhoof Shale, and Drake Well Formation) which we will see upstream. The visible (restricted) Riceville interval on this creek is interpreted to be the eastern, upslope phase of the Chagrin Formation in Ohio. At this locality, the Riceville is expressed as an interval dominated by tabular to lenticular, grey, slabby siltstone beds and grey-green shale interbeds. The siltstone beds weather to a grey-brown color and display sharp, erosional sole marks along their bases. Sedimentary structures observed include: ripple marks on some bedding planes, scour surfaces (sole marks) along bases of beds, and disarticulated brachiopods, bivalve, and echinoderm debris.
“West Mead Bed”. Above the Riceville interval is a compact bundle of siltstone beds which we, herein, designate the “West Mead Bed” for exposures along Bennyhoof Creek north of Meadville (Figure 6). At this creek, this unit includes 1.2 meters (3.6 feet) of resistant, closely-spaced, variably bioturbated, siltstone layers. The base of this unit is marked by a 4-6 cm (2-3 inch-) thick, very dark grey, silty mudstone bed which is floored by a lag of reworked pyrite and conodont/fish bone debris interpreted to mark the horizon of the Skinner’s Run Bed (Figure 7 A). This is succeeded by 25 cm (10 inches) of grey siltstone beds and soft shale. This unit is succeeded by 0.75 meter (2.5 feet) of hard, brown-weathering siltstone beds. The parts of this interval display dark, silty shale partings as well as dark grey siltstone beds which are intensely bioturbated (Figure 6). In particular, the ichnotaxon Helminthopsis has been observed in this interval at several Meadville area sections; this trace fossil is characteristic of basal Mississippian dysoxic deposits and is abundant in the Bartholomew Bed, a division that we will see upstream at this locality (see below). Other fossils present include the brachiopods Cyrtospirifer, Syringothyris, productids, gastropods, and the problematical conical taxon Coleolus (Figure 7 B). We believe, on the basis of conodont yields to date, as well as lithologic features, that this unit is the upslope equivalent of the black Cleveland Shale in Ohio.
“Bennyhoof Shale”. Continuing upstream, we cross a 2.4 meter (8-foot)-thick interval of soft, grey-green mudstone with associated, thin siltstone beds and lentils. We, herein, provisionally refer to this unit as the “Bennyhoof Shale” for good exposures on Bennyhoof Creek north of Meadville (Figure 8). The lowest 0.3 meter (12 inches) of this unit is heavily bioturbated, distinctly silty, and transitional with the underlying West Mead division. The middle of this unit is very shaley with only thin siltstone bed development. The top 0.7 meter (2 foot) portion of this unit is marked by a return of thicker siltstone beds; these are distinctly lenticular (channelized?) and are associated only with trace fossils.
“Drake Well Formation”. The Drake Well Formation is a name herein assigned to strata between the Bennyhoof Shale and the sub-Cussewago disconformity between the French Creek Valley region and the meridian of Union City (Figure 5 A, B). It is observed to appear in a few sections west of French Creek as a feather-edge deposit, followed by eastward thickening as younger beds appear progressively beneath the base-Cussewago contact across the study area. Although the upper part of this unit is concealed at Cora Clark Park, the lower four feet of the interval is well exposed in the creek floor above the Bennyhoof succession. The base of the Drake Well succession at this locality is marked by a diastemic contact, above which is localized development of a channelized lag bed (Figure 6). Along this contact, fish teeth and conodonts occur at the base of a concretionary siltstone lentil on the right-hand (south) side of the creek as we continue upstream. This contact and associated lag deposit appears to be coextensive with a brachiopod- and bone-rich unit in Oil Creek Valley sections which Caster (1934) had called the “Syringothyris Bed” (Figure 7 C), marking the base of Bedford Shale-equivalent deposits. Preliminary conodont information indicates that the base of the Drake Well falls in the M-U expansa zone age-range (Baird, et al., 2009a, b).
Lateral to-, and immediately above, the concretionary lentil, is a change to fossiliferous, burrowed, muddy siltstone which is well exposed in the floor of the creek. Several types of disarticulated brachiopod taxa (Cyrtospirifer , Syringothyris , and an unidentified rhynchonellid) can be seen on some bedding planes. More significantly, a large cluster of articulated and partially articulated echinoids, identified as Hyattechinus pentagonus, is visible on the righthand (south) side of the creek (Figure 7 D). The echinoids occur in association with complete and partial spicule skeletons of glass sponges which were buried with the sea urchins in the same storm event. The sponges can be seen as moldic rectilinear patterns on bedding surfaces.
Cussewago Sandstone. Following a 28-31 meter (90-100 foot)-long concealed interval along the creek, involving only a small vertical gain, an interval of disturbed strata is visible on the left-hand (southeast-facing) cutbank and in a sloped, falls ramp in the creek floor immediately upstream from the cutbank. Although these beds are highly deformed, they appear to belong, in part, within the Cussewago Sandstone succession. The Cussewago Sandstone has been traced regionally from the Grand River Valley area in Ohio, eastward to the meridian of Union City (Caster, 1934; Pepper, et al. 1954; Pashin and Ettensohn, 1995). The present authors agree with Pashin and Ettensohn (1995) that the Cussewago is the eastern equivalent of the lower (main) part of the Berea Sandstone succession in Ohio. Although the Cussewago is much thinner than the Ohio lower Berea overall, both units locally display large-scale cross-bedding, a complex internal stratigraphy, and both structural and soft-sediment bedding deformation. Pashin and Ettensohn (1995) further speculated that the sub-Cussewago disconformity was the regional signature of the end- Devonian glaciation-related eustatic drawdown event. Although shelly fossils are generally absent from most sections, plant debris and palynomorph are common on some bedding surfaces. The Cussewago is unusual for its often extreme friability; it usually weathers to soft, wet, sloped banks where groundwater exits from this unit.
The deformed interval in the southeast-facing bank is quite problematic in that two lithologies are caught up in the disturbance and that the relationship of the disturbed interval with the underlying Drake Well Formation is concealed here. A sharply-bounded block of massive, friable Cussewago Sandstone appears to be bordered or surrounded by green-grey shale which is also deformed. It is uncertain at this time whether this shale is a pre-Cussewago unit or whether it is part of the Cussewago succession. Similarly, the adjacent, ramped falls surface may be in the topmost Drake Well Formation or it too may be part of the Cussewago as well. For perspective, the basal part of the Cussewago often displays deformed greenish shale at its base in association with sandstone ball-and-pillow structures. Patterns of internal soft-sediment deformation within the Cussewago as well as pronounced spatial thickness variability for this unit accord well with the idea that the Cussewago represents transgressive backfilling of a paleovalley system. Deformed beds in the Cussewago may, thus, may be the record of local sediment-slumping events within coastal channel networks. Proceeding upstream, one can view additional, undeformed Cussewago in the north-facing, right-hand cutbank and in the low waterfall in the creek bed below the overpass of the transverse park path over the creek. An approximate total of 5 meters (16-17 feet) of Cussewago Sandstone is exposed in Cora Clark Park.
Shellhammer Hollow Formation. This is a term erected by Pepper, et al. (1954) for a succession of undifferentiated shale and sandstone units between the underlying Cussewago Sandstone and the overlying, basal Mississippian Bartholomew Bed. It is, herein, understood to include, in upward-ascending order, equivalents of Chadwick’s (1925) Hayfield Shale, an upper siltstone division of the Berea Sandstone, and an interval of silty shale below the Bartholomew Bed as discussed in greater detail in Baird et al. (2009a). At Cora Clark Park, the Shellhammer Hollow interval is 6.3 meters (20 feet)-thick. It is well exposed in a small, steep, south-facing side gully adjacent to the top-Cussewago waterfall below the park path overpass. Cora Clark Park is unusual for poor development of the Berea upper division siltstone unit; most of the 6.3 meter succession is very shaley, but a thin bundle of flaggy, partly deformed, siltstone beds in the middle of this interval appears to be what is left of the Berea siltstone division in this area.
Bartholomew Bed. The base of the confirmed Mississippian succession in the Meadville area is marked by the discrete Bartholomew Siltstone Bed (Figures 4, 5, 8 C, D). The Bartholomew Bed, ranging from 0.15-0.3 Meter (5-12 inches) in thickness across western Crawford County is an important regional marker to stratigraphers which is usually easily located in sections (Pepper, et al., 1954; Schiner and Kimmel, 1972). It is typically expressed as a falls-capping ledge of dark grey bioturbated siltstone which weathers to a rusty color in sections (Figure 8 C). The base of this bed is sharp and marks an erosional discontinuity. It is also notable for intense bioturbation by the ichnotaxon Helminthopsis which is characterized by distinctive, curved, hook-shaped markings. Helminthopsisis widely understood to be a deposit-feeding trace associated with dysoxic, offshore, Mississippian deposits. We will observe the Bartholomew Bed upstream from the park path over the creek (Figure 8 C).
Orangeville Shale. Continuing upstream past the thin and compact Bartholomew Bed we, finally, encounter a bank of dark, fissile shale exposed in south-facing cutbank. This is the basal part of a thick succession of dark grey shale, grey shale, and tabular siltstone beds known as the Orangeville Shale of Lower Mississippian age which is a widespread division across northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania (Figure 5). The basal 13 meters (40 feet) of the Orangeville consists of fissile dark grey shale in the Meadville area. In this cutbank, we see only the basal few meters of this greater interval. Body fossils are scarce in the Bartholomew Bed and lower part of the Orangeville Shale. Disarticulated Lingula and orbiculoid valves can be found at this locality.

STOP 4A: The Story of the Drake Well (history as contingency)
Many people assume that Edwin L. Drake showed up in Titusville, Pennsylvania, one day, drilled his well, and single-handedly ushered in the modern petroleum industry. Actually, there were many people involved in the effort. Drake was only part of the story, a very important part, but his place in history would not have existed were it not for a fascinating series of events, and the people involved in those events.
Samuel W. Kier (Figure 10 A), a Pittsburgh-area entrepreneur who dabbled in various enterprises, entered the salt business in 1847 and bought some property in the premier location of western Pennsylvania’s salt-well industry about 32 km (20 mi) north of Pittsburgh. He drilled two wells to the Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation, a well-known brine-producing sand at a depth of 122 m (400 ft) (Hughes, 1933). Although the wells produced a substantial amount of brine, they also produced an annoying amount of crude oil, a contaminant. According to legend, Kier’s wife developed tuberculosis in 1848 and the attending physician prescribed "American Medicinal Oil" from Kentucky (Miller, 1974). Kier recognized the medicinal oil and the salt-well contaminant were the same fluid. He turned his wife’s misfortune into a new and profitable enterprise by packaging the oil as medicine in half-pint bottles and selling them for 50 cents each. In 1850, following the advice of a prominent Philadelphia chemist, Kier set up a small still in Pittsburgh and experimented with distilling the oil. He eventually was able to distill a form of kerosene and began production of “carbon oil” for use in lamps. He also invented a lamp burner that would fit any lamp of the day and burn the "carbon oil" with little or no smoke. Single-handedly, Samuel W. Kier turned the lighting business upside-down. He was soon selling his “carbon oil” and his lamp burners in New York.
At about the same time, Dr. Francis Beattie Brewer (Figure 10 B), a Dartmouth College educated physician and son of the president of a Titusville lumbering operation called Brewer, Watson and Company, became interested in crude oil. The company owned the Hibbard farm along Oil Creek about a mile south of Titusville. Like many areas along the creek, the farm had numerous oil seeps. Francis experimented with oil he collected on the farm and pioneered the use of crude oil for legitimate medical purposes. In 1851, he convinced his father to gather the oil for sale. On July 4, 1853, Brewer, Watson and Company signed the first petroleum development lease in the U.S. with J. D. Angier of Titusville (USGS, 1980). Angier set up some wooden cribs to trap the oil and some inexpensive machinery to separate the oil from the water, allowing him to collect between 11 and 23 l (3 and 6 gal) a day, most of it used for lighting and lubrication in the sawmill (Flaherty, 2003). That fall, Brewer showed a small sample to Dr. Dixi Crosby of the Dartmouth Medical School and Professor 0. P. Hubbard of the Dartmouth Chemistry Department, both of whom examined the sample and decided it had great value. Professor Hubbard, however, said the oil would never be commercially viable because it could not be obtained in large quantities.
Another Dartmouth graduate, New York lawyer and businessman George H. Bissell (Figure 10 C), saw an advertisement for Kier’s lamp oil, which caught his interest. He also saw Brewer’s little bottle of oil in Crosby’s office while visiting. He immediately put two and two together and had the Brewer, Watson and Company oil springs inspected. The resulting report was very positive, so Bissell and his partner, Jonathan G. Eveleth, decided to organize a company, buy the land, develop the oil springs, and sell the oil for lighting. They bought both the 100-acre Hibbard farm and an adjacent 1,200-acre tract from Brewer, Watson and Company in November, 1854. A month later, they formed the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of New York, the world’s first oil company. Prospective New York investors were unfamiliar with crude oil, however, and were unwilling to invest in a commodity of unknown commercial value. Worried about the lack of interest in their company, Bissell and Eveleth hired Yale College chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman, Jr. (Figure 10 D) to analyze some crude oil and suggest ways it could be put to economic use. Silliman, who was arguably the country’s foremost chemist, performed a series of experiments on the oil and, in April, 1855, wrote a glowing report of its value. It was superior to most oils he had examined; it did not harden on exposure to air, produced a good flame, and could be distilled into eight useful and economically viable products.
With Silliman’s report in hand, Bissell and Eveleth were able to interest James M. Townsend (Figure 10 E), president of the City Savings Bank of New Haven, Connecticut, in their venture. Townsend and some of his associates were willing to buy into the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, but only if Bissell and Eveleth reincorporated the company from New York to Connecticut. The changeover occurred on September 18, 1855 (Giddens, 1948) and Townsend was elected president of the new company. Because Bissell and Eveleth were still in debt as a result of the cost of obtaining the land and incorporating the company, they decided to sell the land to the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company and then lease it for oil production. By chance, just a few days before the sale, Bissell learned that Pennsylvania law required property owned by non-Pennsylvania corporations to be forfeited to the state of Pennsylvania (Flaherty, 2003). So, instead of selling the land to the company, Bissell and Eveleth convinced two of the stockholders to buy it, and then leased the land from them for 99 years. It was discovered, however, that the stockholders in question had used worthless securities in the transaction. Bissell and Eveleth already had a strained relationship with Townsend and his New Haven associates; this latest fiasco only caused the company to lapse into inactivity for several years. Townsend, however, continued to be enthusiastic about the Titusville prospect.
Townsend lived in the same New Haven hotel as a 38-year-old railroad conductor and jack-of-all-trades named Edwin L. Drake (Figure 10 F). Drake knew Townsend very well and actually invested $200 in the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. In 1857, he became ill and resigned as a railroad conductor. Knowing that Drake was still eligible for free railroad transportation, Townsend convinced him to go to Titusville and Pittsburgh to take care of some necessary legal matters. In advance of Drake’s arrival in Titusville, Townsend mailed all the legal papers and several letters to “Colonel E. L. Drake” in care of the Brewer, Watson and Company. Drake was never in the military, but the title “Colonel” carried great weight with the locals, and it stuck. He investigated the Oil Creek area, visited the oil springs and observed oil being used for lighting and lubrication at nearby sawmills. He then traveled to Pittsburgh to complete his legal business and, while there, visited the salt works north of the city. Upon returning to New Haven, Drake told Townsend all he’d seen and suggested that oil could be obtained in commercial quantities at Oil Creek. Townsend and a majority of the board of directors of the company were favorably impressed with Drake’s report. They formed the Seneca Oil Company of Connecticut on March 23, 1858. Drake was named president and leading stockholder, and a few days later he was elected general agent.
Drake moved his family to Titusville in May, 1858. At first, he tried to dig a well on the Hibbard farm, but the workmen were flushed from the hole by a gush of water. In frustration, Drake abandoned these works and decided that it would be cheaper to drill in the fashion of Pittsburgh’s salt wells. Because no one in Titusville understood drilling, he traveled to Pittsburgh to consult with salt-well owners and hire a driller. When he returned to Titusville, he ordered a six-horsepower steam engine and a "Long John" stationary tubular boiler to furnish power for drilling, and then designed an engine house and derrick (the outside of the derrick was boarded over because Drake expected to drill through the snowy northwestern Pennsylvania winter). By August, 1858 everything was ready for a driller, but the driller he had hired didn’t show up. Drake later learned that the driller thought he was crazy and only agreed to drill for oil to get rid of him. Several other drillers were hired, but none of them appeared at Titusville. Drake was about ready to abandon the idea of drilling when Lewis Peterson, one of Drake’s salt-well-operator friends, recommended William A. Smith (Figure 10 G), a tool maker who was known locally as “Uncle Billy”. He agreed to work for Drake for $2.50 per day, and threw in the services of his 15-year old son for free. “Uncle Billy” arrived in Titusville with his son and daughter in mid-May, 1959 and the rest of his family followed in July. Because the initial hole that was dug for drilling kept caving in due to flooding from Oil Creek, Drake bought 3-m- (10-ft)-long segments of iron pipe in Erie and drove them 10 m (32 ft) through the glacial outwash of Oil Creek Valley until they hit bedrock. Finally, in mid-August 1959, they began using the steam engine and drilled at a rate of about 1 m (3 ft) per day.
Meanwhile, in New Haven, the company stockholders were losing their enthusiasm for the project, and even Townsend was getting discouraged, despite continuing to support Drake financially. Finally, in frustration, Townsend decided to end the operation. He sent Drake a final remittance and told him to pay all outstanding bills and return to New Haven. In one of the more serendipitous moments in history, Townsend’s message and money failed to reach Drake until after that momentous day in late August, 1859.
On Saturday afternoon, August 27, 1859, the drillers were about to quit work until Monday when the drill bit dropped into a crevice at 21 m (69 ft), and then slipped down another 15 cm (6 in). The men put their tools away and went home without further thought. On Sunday afternoon, “Uncle Billy” visited the well and saw oil floating on top of the water. He lowered a tin container into the hole and pulled it up filled with oil. His son ran shouting, “They’ve struck oil! They’ve struck oil!” On Monday morning, Drake arrived to find “Uncle Billy” and his crew guarding the well as well as several tubs and barrels already full of oil. Unfortunately, no one bothered to gauge the production. Still, it has been estimated that the well probably produced between 0.95 and 1.2 kl (8 and 10 barrels) of oil per day.
Although the original engine house and derrick were destroyed by fire on October 7, 1859, a rebuilt version served as the backdrop of the iconic 1866 photograph of Colonel Drake (Figure 11) by John Mather that is iconic to the history of petroleum exploration.
The Aftermath. Just a few years after Drake’s success, he lost everything, and a serious bout of neuralgia kept him confined to an invalid’s chair for the remainder of his life. Destitute and seriously ill, he moved to various locations trying to find a cure, but it was not forthcoming and he died in November 1880 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Although he was buried in Bethlehem, his body was removed to Titusville in 1901 and a large monument was erected to his memory.
In 1904, on the 45th anniversary of the Drake Well, the Canadohta Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) acquired the land where Drake’s well had been drilled, and, subsequently, the American Petroleum Institute (API) established a museum and library on the site. In 1934, on the 75th anniversary of the Drake Well, API formally turned it over to the state of Pennsylvania as a historical park. In 1945, a full-scale reproduction of Drake’s engine house and derrick, including a boiler, steam engine, and other machinery of the sort that Drake used to drill his well, was built on the original well site (Figure 12). You can watch museum personnel pump oil with the working machinery; this oil is supplied by the McClintock # 1 well drilled in 1861. It is the oldest continuously producing oil well on Earth, which can be seen at Rouseville about 21 km (13 mi) to the south.
Today the 219-acre park is maintained by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. It includes the museum building, a gift shop, the working replica of the Drake Well, pre- Columbian oil pits, and numerous examples of historical oilfield equipment. The museum building houses indoor exhibits, as well as a research library of about 3,500 books and 10,600 photographs among its many interesting holdings.

STOP 4B: “type” “Drake Well Formation” section: a northwest Pennsylvania paleontological “gold mine”
This provisional unit was defined by one of us (Harper) following detailed comparisons of his subsurface work on this interval with earlier studies (see Harper, 1998; Baird et al., 2009a). As understood herein, the name “Drake Well Formation” is an approximate replacement of earlier terms “Kushequa Member” (sensu Caster, 1934) and “unnamed member” (sensu Dodge, 1992) for the western, distal, part of the Knapp Formation, which is normally characterized by coarser conglomeratic beds in its eastern area of occurrence (see review in Baird et al., 2009 A).
This railroad cut displays 7.5 meters (24 feet) which is only a lower-medial subset of the 18 meter (60 foot) total thickness of the “Drake Well” succession (Harper, 1998). The lower 3.5 meters (10 feet) of this outcrop (now partly covered) is predominantly shale with thin, tabular siltstone beds. The upper 4 meters consists of more resistant sandstone and siltstone beds which are distinctly rich in fossils (see below).
“Drake Well Formation” Fossils. The exposure near the railroad station at the entrance to the park is where the Memorial Museum and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have designated a place where fossil collecting is permitted. To avoid injury, please do not dislodge heavy rocks from the cut and do not place rocks on the railroad tracks.
The upper Devonian rocks exposed at the railroad cut have been most recently called the “Drake Well Formation” (Harper 1998; Baird, et al 2009a). The discontinuous 9 inch sandy section, approximately 4 meters above the tracks, near the top of the exposed cut has produced excellent specimens of the Phyllocarid shrimp Echinocaris randallii (Figure 9 C) and Tropidocaris as well as another undescribed phyllocarid related to Ohiocaris (McKenzie 2009c. The formation contains angular fragments of a lingulid brachiopod. Similar fragments are also seen in the Chagrin Shale in north eastern Ohio in association with several Echinocaris species. Echinocaris had molar like mandibles that would have been ideal for shell crushing (duraphagous) feeding, which may explain the fragmental brachiopod hash in both locations.
The tabulate coral Pleurodictyum, brachiopods, gastropods and occasional specimens of Porcellia (Figure 9 D), a gastropod with coiling superficially similar to a Mesozoic ammonite, are found at this site in the sandier upper beds in association with crinoid and branching bryozoan sections (McKenzie, 2009b). Porcellia was first observed here in 2011. A chondrophore hydrozoan has also been found at this exposure. Pelecypods, bryozoans and crinoid ossicles are frequently preserved as orange cavities in the sandstone. Presumably those fossils were originally preserved in pyrite or a similar replacement which has altered. Beds with a similar lithology and faunal content have been reported in the Warren, Pennsylvania area (Waverly Fm.) and in Forest County near Hunter Run. For a Drake Well formation faunal list, see Harper et al. (2009; p. 129) in the 74th Annual Pennsylvania Conference guidebook.
Titusville hosts the iconic, and enigmatic, fossil Titusvillia drakei (Figure 9 A), which was originally described from the Drake Well interval nearby (Caster, 1939). Although originally identified by Caster as a glass sponge, recent work has cast doubt on this assignment (McKenzie 2009a). Titusvillia is most likely a trace fossil and is a junior synonym of Armstrongia oryx, another trace fossil.

STOP 5. Pithole Historical Museum
Anatomy of a Ghost Town – Pithole (a cautionary tale). Originally, the area that was to later become the prosperous town of Pithole, consisted of forest and a few farms owned by Thomas and Walter Holmden and a few other farmers (Lytle, 1959). Aware of the drilling action along nearby Oil Creek, two speculators, I.N. Frazier and James Faulkner, leased a number of acres from the farmers and teamed with two other men to form the United States Petroleum Company in 1864. Pithole oil field was discovered in January, 1865, following the advice of a dowser who told Frazier and Faulkner to drill on a corner of the Thomas Holmden lease. The Frazier well, as it was called, was drilled first by spring pole then by steam engine (Darrah, 1972). At about the same time the Frazier well was being drilled, two men named Kilgore and Keenan, who had subleased part of the Holmden lease, were drilling two wells they called the Twin wells. On January 7, 1865, the Frazier Well began to flow oil at 250 barrels of oil per day (BOPD). Less than two weeks later, the Twin wells came in. When the news got out, the throngs began to arrive en mass (Darrah, 1972; Burchardt, 1989b; Flaherty, 2003). The stock of the United States Petroleum Company jumped from $6.25 to $40 a share (Lytle, 1959). In April 1865, a Boston company completed the Homestead Well 250 BOPD just 100 feet outside the boundary of the Thomas Holmden farm (Lytle, 1959), establishing that the Holmden farm was not the only productive acreage.
One of Pithole’s more interesting investors was a dashingly handsome actor named John Wilkes Booth (Figure 13). Booth and a real estate dealer named Joseph H. Simonds arrived in Venango County in June 1864 and roomed in Franklin (Michener, 1997). Simonds had acquired an interest in an oil lease of three and a half acres for Booth in December 1863 or January 1864. Booth had also purchased a 1/3rd undivided interest in a lease on the Allegheny River near Franklin that was drilled by the Dramatic Oil Company, and an undivided 1/30th of a contract in the Homestead well at Pithole (Giddens, 1947; Lytle, 1959; Michener, 1997). According to Simonds, “The whole amounted invested by him in this Allegheny River property, in every way, was about $5,000, and the other investment was about $1,000, making $6,000 in all.” (Giddens, 1947, p. 258). As it turned out, all of the investments turned sour. The Dramatic Oil Company drilled only dry holes, and the Homestead well had not yet been drilled. Booth lost interest in his investments, pulled up stakes, and left Franklin on September 27, 1864. In April 1865, the Homestead Well was completed with a flow of 250 BOPD (Lytle, 1959). That same month, the Civil War ended and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC. Imagine how history might have been different if Booth’s investments had paid off and stimulated his interest even further!
Following the discovery of Pithole field, the United States Petroleum Company divided its holdings into half-acre leases and sold 60 of its 80 leases at an average of $3,000 (Lytle, 1959; Darrah, 1972). As many as four wells were drilled to an acre. Suddenly the production of the Homestead Well jumped to 500 BOPD and that of the Frazier Well to 1,200 BOPD (Lytle, 1959; Pees, 2001). At the end of June 1865, the wells along Pithole Creek were producing 2,000 BOPD, or 1/3rd of the total world production of oil. Speculation in oil became a huge business. Tens of thousands of dollars were made and lost by selling and reselling oil leases. In July, 1865, the Holmden farm was sold for $1,300,000, the largest sum ever paid in the oil region for a single tract of land (Lytle, 1959).
Pees (2001) tells of the Grant well, which appeared to be a dry hole when drilling ceased in August 1865. The drillers were coaxed into running some tubing in the hole to increase speculation that it was, in fact, a producing well, and after pumping for four hours, the well suddenly began producing as much as 800 BOPD. The owner of the half-acre lot next to the Grant Well paid $1,600 for it that spring; after the Grant well came in, he sold it for $16,500, the highest price on record for a half-acre lease (Lytle, 1959). Also in August, the Pool well, which was not far from the Frazier Well, came in at 300 BOPD and jumped to 1,500 BOPD. It was the largest producer at Pithole.
By September 1865, Pithole field was producing 6,000 BOPD. As Lytle (1959) pointed out, there are any number of wells being drilled and produced in the world today that produce 6,000 BOPD by themselves. But, in the oil territory of northwestern Pennsylvania in 1865, this was an incredible amount of oil. The Holmden Farm alone had 96 wells either producing or being drilled and the daily rate was 4,000 BOPD. Then, the people who had bought the Holmden farm were unable to meet the terms of the sale; the sellers took back the farm and resold it to someone else for $2,000,000! After Pithole became a ghost town, the Venango County commissioners bought the Holmden farm in 1878 for $4.37. The commissioners then sold it to a private owner in 1886 for $83.76!
The Rise and Fall of Pithole City. The Thomas Holmden farm became Pithole City, planned and laid out in May 1865, with land available for development through three- or five-year leases (Stephens and Bobersky, 2007). The town was laid out on the hill in 500 lots along some 22 streets, with lots being only 33 feet wide, whereas the oil wells were sited on the flat land of the creek valley south and east of the town (Figure 14). New construction began immediately as oilmen, professional and amateur alike, stampeded to Pithole Creek to grab what they could. The Civil War had just ended, the country was flush with people anxious to invest in oil, and soldiers discharged from the army were eager for jobs, and many people were willing to lease or buy any scrap of land that held even the remotest prospect of having oil on it. The Pithole area began to see a land rush unheard of; thousands came in search of Oildorado. The forest disappeared quickly as trees were cut and shaped for lumber as the building frenzy took hold. Many buildings were dangerously flimsy; many were built and ready for occupancy within a week. Only the leading hotels, theaters, churches, and finer establishments were constructed properly. However, not a single brick or stone was used in any of this construction (Lytle, 1959).
Potable water was scarce in the early days, so it became a profitable business to haul water to the town it from distant wells and sell a drink for 10 cents. As a direct result, the business in “distilled spirits” flourished. Finally, in December 1865, a water system reservoir was completed and pipes were laid along the main street. Since Pithole had no sewage system, the larger hotels had dry wells used for sewage disposal. As a result, many first-time visitors came and went with a first impression of unassailable odor – both human waste and crude oil mixing in a very unpleasant smell.
In September 1865, Pithole had reached its zenith. It had a population of 15,000, a newspaper, a post office, two banks, two telegraph offices, a fire department, an opera house, and a huge number of hotels – more than 50 by most counts (Stephens and Bobersky, 2007). One of these, the Danforth House, a large, elegant and comfortable hotel that furnished its guests with all the conveniences of a metropolitan hotel, stood at the corner of Holmden Street and First Street (Figure 15 A). The Chase House was the finest of Pithole’s hotels. It could accommodate 200 guests, and seated 100 in its dining room. The telegraph offices were located there, and it was the general headquarters for the stage lines. It boasted a saloon on the ground floor that was furnished with a luxurious bar and numerous pictures. Murphy's Theater on First Street, the largest building in Pithole, could seat 1,000 people. Four religious denominations, Methodist, Episcopalian, United Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic conducted services at Pithole. The city boasted a social life with balls, concerts, strawberry festivals, and church socials.
Pithole was a town of law-abiding citizens early on, despite the lack of formal government, law, or jails; strangers were surprised how little drunkenness they saw on the streets (Lytle, 1959). It took until December 1865 before Pithole was incorporated as a borough and held its first election. But by the end of that year, Pithole saw the coming of ruffians and drifters. Among Pithole’s more notorious citizens were Ben Hogan and French Kate who operated a variety of brothels during the oil boom (Giddens, 1947; Lytle, 1959; Darrah, 1972; and Burgchardt, 1989a).
By August 1865, just a few short weeks before Pithole City attained its record population of 15,000, the Homestead well suddenly stopped flowing and had to be pumped. At about the same time, several wells on the Holmden Farm caught fire and burned. A fire in October 1865 destroyed $1.5 million worth of oil and properties on the flats. The Frazier and Island wells stopped flowing in November 1865, but a new completion on the Holmden Farm came in at 1,000 BOPD and spurred new interest in the area. But in January 1866, the daily production of wells drop sharply, followed in February and March by fires on Holmden Street and Brown Street that destroyed two livery stables, a brothel and two dwelling houses, among other establishments (Lytle, 1959). By February 1867, as Pithole production dropped to less than 1,000 BOPD, people began to desert Pithole for the next big thing. By the end of 1867, the town was essentially dead. Only a small handful of people stayed behind, and by 1870 nothing was left except the odd piece of discarded lumber and holes where cellars and foundations used to be. In the end, the pool of oil that brought so much excitement to the area turned out to be only 100 acres in size (Pees, 2001).
Pithole is now a National Historic Site administered by the Drake Well Museum (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission). It is open to visitors, and many of the sites of the principal buildings have been identified and are marked with signs. Today, Pithole is gone, completely covered in grass and trees, so it is difficult to realize that so much excitement and activity once took place at this remote and isolated spot. “Streets” are kept mown, and many buildings seen in historical photos can be found as simple holes in the ground (Figure 15 B). The town is quickly approaching the state the area was in when Frazier and Faulkner first came and leased the wilderness farm of Thomas Holmden.
The First Oil Pipeline. One of Pithole’s claims to fame was the building of the first oil pipeline. Teamsters were the primary oil transporters of the day, transporting oil by wagon from Pithole to Titusville, Oil Creek, or Oil City where it would then be loaded onto railroads for shipment. The teamsters charged $3 per barrel to take the oil 5.5 miles Oil Creek. The market price of a barrel of oil at that time was about $3, so the cost of getting oil to a refinery was $6 per barrel, twice what the oilmen were getting! In the fall of 1864, Samuel Van Syckel (Figure 16) and two other men formed the Oil Transportation Association and constructed a 2-inch pipeline from Pithole to the railroad depot on Oil Creek (Figure 17). The pipeline was successful from the beginning, despite the objections of the teamsters. The pipeline was well-designed and well-built and when finished, it could transport 81 barrels of oil per hour, cutting the cost of transporting from $3 to $1 per barrel. Van Syckel’s pipeline is considered to have been the beginning of the end for the oilfield teamsters. The idea caught on immediately and soon pipelines were built from all of the principal producing fields to the refining centers in Franklin, Oil City, and Titusville. At its operational peak, the Van Syckel pipeline consisted of two 2” pipelines. With the decline of Pithole, both were dug up and salvaged. The trench was never back-filled and can still be seen in some areas along its course.

2: THE PENN DIXIE PALEONTOLOGICAL AND OUTDOOR EDUCATION CENTER: AN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWN MULTIDISCIPLINE EDUCATIONAL, CULTURAL, RECREATIONAL AND TOURIST ATTRACTION
Jerold C. Bastedo
Executive Director
Penn Dixie Paleontological and Outdoor Education Center
P.O. Box 772
Hamburg, New York 14075
jbpendix@gmail.com
www.penndixie.org
The Hamburg Natural History Society, Inc. (HNHS) is a nonprofit educational corporation that owns and operates The Penn Dixie Paleontological and Outdoor Education Center in Hamburg, New York (Fig. 1). The HNHS was founded in 1993 to promote the study of the natural sciences, with a particular emphasis on field activities associated with the geological and biological sciences. The HNHS offers a wide variety of hands-on educational programming to students of all ages, both at the Penn Dixie Site and off-site at local schools, libraries, and civic group meetings. Since its inception, the HNHS has expanded its educational curriculum to include public educational programming in astronomy and ornithology to complement its core study in geology and fossil collecting and identification. Unlike conventional museums or research facilities, the Penn Dixie Site is a hands-on outdoor educational facility—one at which visitors of all ages are encouraged to actually collect and keep 380-million-year-old fossils – “Where Science Comes Alive”.
Penn Dixie is the site of a former quarry operation that was the source of calcareous shale excavated and used for cement aggregate by the Penn Dixie Cement Company. A majority of the 57-acre site was quarried until the late 1960s, during which time 9 to 10 feet of shale was removed from the surface. A gray, somewhat flat “desert-like” or “lunar landscape-appearing” surface now occupies a majority of the site. After quarry operations ceased, weathering forces began to expose 380 million-year-old Devonian fossils preserved within the Windom Shale. This highly fossiliferous unit underlies the entire site and provides an inexhaustible supply of fossils. In addition to the Windom Shale, several limestone units - the Genundewa, North Evans, and Tichenor are exposed on the surface. The Wanakah Shale also outcrops, underlying the Tichenor Limestone, in a tributary that flows into Rush Creek and in cliffs along Rush Creek on the northern section of the site. All of these units contain a variety of fossils.

2: THE PENN DIXIE PALEONTOLOGICAL AND OUTDOOR EDUCATION CENTER: AN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWN MULTIDISCIPLINE EDUCATIONAL, CULTURAL, RECREATIONAL AND TOURIST ATTRACTION

STOP 1. Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Reserve

3: FOSSIL BEDS, FACIES GRADIENTS AND SEAFLOOR DYNAMICS IN THE MIDDLE DEVONIAN MOSCOW FORMATION, WESTERN NEW YORK
Carlton E. Brett, Andrew Zaffos
Department of Geology
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0013
Gordon C. Baird
Department of Geosciences
SUNY Fredonia
Fredonia, NY 14063
Alex J. Bartholomew
SUNY College at New Paltz
New Paltz, NY 12561
INTRODUCTION
The Middle Devonian strata of western New York State have long provided a natural laboratory for studying paleontology and microstratigraphy along and across depositional strike. Excellent exposures along the cliffs of Lake Erie, in the vicinity of Eighteen Mile Creek south of Hamburg, NY, were made famous by A. W. Grabau, who described these sections and their fossils in detail in a classic two part series published though the Buffalo Museum of Science (Grabau, 1898, 1899). This work recognized a series of distinctive shell-coral rich beds (e.g., Pleurodictyum bed, Trilobite beds, “Spirifer” consobrinus bed) characterized by atypically abundant species at specific horizons (Grabau, 1898,1899). These fossil beds, a form of epibole (see Brett and Baird, 1997), typically can also be distinguished lithologically because of densely packed shell-rich beds and associated concretions or concretionary limestones. Subsequent detailed studies of Hamilton stratigraphy documented that all of Grabau's horizons and many others were traceable laterally for distances of more than 200 km and across rather major facies changes (Cooper, 1930, 1933, 1934; Brett (ed.) 1983, Landing and Brett (eds.) 1991, and papers therein; Brett and Baird, 1994, 1996, Brett et al. 1986, 1990, 2011). Moreover, studies by Batt (1995, 1996) revealed that even centimeter-scale shell beds were correlatable for distances of tens of kilometers.
The ability to correlate these fossil beds over great distances oblique to depositional strike and dip indicates extrinsic, regional effects that affected large portions of the foreland basin. A second key observation is that shell rich horizons within mudstones in western New York trace eastward into shell beds that overlie 1-5 m scale coarsening upward mudstone to siltstone cycles. This led Brett and Baird (1985, 1986, 1996) to postulate that the shell-rich beds record intervals of widespread decrease in sedimentation probably associated with flooding surfaces at the tops of major and superimposed minor cycles, probably of eustatic origin.
A third critical observation is that the shell beds are facies cross-cutting, that is they show lateral gradients in terms of facies, taphonomy and faunal content. Not only does this provide a strong case against the diachroneity of such shell rich horizons, but also that these beds are essentially isochronous, though condensed, intervals and provide excellent samples of "gradient transects" from shelf to basinal areas, reflecting changes in sedimentation, grain size, substrate type. To date, relatively few studies have capitalized upon this aspect of the Hamilton shell rich beds (but see Lafferty et al., 1994; Bonelli et al., 2008). Such gradient transects have value in both paleobiological and sedimentological studies as well as elucidating subtle changes in seafloor topography, shifting depocenters and synsedimentary tectonics (cf. Miller et al., 2001).
Shell beds of similar biofacies from different levels in the Hamilton Group show many similarities of composition and relative abundance that have been emphasized in discussions of relative stability and coordinated stasis in Hamilton faunas (Brett and Baird, 1995, Brett et al., 1996, 2007; Ivany et al., 2009). Perhaps most importantly, they suggest niche conservatism: taxa tended to remain in similar positions along onshore-offshore and other gradients. However, as emphasized by Bonelli et al. (2006) no two samples of the same biofacies are identical, especially in terms of relative abundance. While this is in part an artifact of the portions of gradients sampled in the available outcrop belt, there are clearly real differences that are not so readily explained. This returns to the issue raised by Grabau: particular shell-rich horizons are identifiable based on abundances of unique taxa. The Murder Creek and Smoke Creek trilobite beds are similar in many ways both in terms of lithology, stratigraphic patterns, and faunas. However, each has distinctive, unique features that set them apart from one another and other such beds. For example, the Murder Creek bed of the Wanakah Shale is particularly rich in the pink nacreous brachiopod Pholidostrophia nacrea, which is not known to occur in the seemingly very similar Smoke Creek bed of the Windom Member, while the latter is rich in the brachiopod Mucrospirifer consobrinus, a form rare throughout most of the rest of the Hamilton Group. Such epiboles are poorly understood. They do show that a simple tracking model (e.g. Brett et al., 2007) is inadequate to explain all of the variation seen in the Hamilton Group. Presumably some factor other than typical depth or sedimentologically related parameters controlled the abundance of these taxa. This is evident from the facies cross-cutting nature of epibole taxa: Mucrospirifer consobrinus, is common in calcareous mudstone and concretionary limestones in Erie County, but also occurs in rather dark shale near the basin center and in siltstones and even fine grained sandstones in outcrops of central New York. Such epiboles are extremely helpful in correlation, especially in the context of a framework of other such beds.
In the present paper we discuss a gradient within a single interval, the Bay View and Smoke Creek beds of the lower Windom Shale Member in western New York (Erie and western Genesee counties; Fig. 1) and how it compares with the idealized Hamilton gradient. Using ecological techniques of gradient analysis, specifically detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), we have quantified a gradient within the Bay View-Smoke Creek interval in western New York. Finally, we show how such beds can be used to constrain paleogeography and to provide datums for interpreting unconformities.

3: FOSSIL BEDS, FACIES GRADIENTS AND SEAFLOOR DYNAMICS IN THE MIDDLE DEVONIAN MOSCOW FORMATION, WESTERN NEW YORK

STOP 1. Lake Erie shore north of the mouth of Pike Creek.
This locality provides an overview of the Windom Shale at its thinnest and westernmost exposures. The top of the Tichenor Limestone is exposed just above the lake level and the entire thickness of the Windom Shale, here about 3.5 m thick is exposed to good advantage. Lower beds of the Windom member in unconformable contact with a hardground at the top of the Tichenor Member show a very thin succession of Ambocoelia beds overlain by a condensed Bay View bed, about 10 cm thick with abundant large rugose corals, primarily Cystiphylloides, Heliophyllum and Heterophrentis, the atrypid brachiopods, Pseudoatrypa cf. devoniana and Spinatrypa spinosa, and the spiriferid Mediospirifer audaculus. This bed is overlain in turn by a light gray calcareous band of the Smoke Creek trilobite bed with abundant small rugose coral (Amplexiphyllum, Stereolasma) and the trilobites Eldredgeops rana and Greenops boothi. This thin argillaceous limestone persists eastward with relatively little change in thickness or lithology to the western Finger Lakes area despite major changes in thickness of adjacent portions of the Windom Shale.
The remainder of the Windom consists of sparsely fossiliferous medium gray shale with calcareous beds. Near the top, concretionary limestones bear the brachiopod Emanuella praeumbona marking the position of the Amsdell bed of the mid Windom Fisher Gully sub-member. Thus, the upper portion of the unit is absent here.
Windom Member Shale is sharply overlain by a thin (1-2 cm) slightly pyritic, bone and conodont rich crinoidal packstone- the North Evans Limestone, or conodont bed. This bed is a classic exemplar of a condensed interval. Recent studies indicate that this thin band contains relict conodonts spanning at least five zones ranging from mid Givetian Pol. anasatus to lower Frasnian Ancyrodella rotundiloba) At the basal unconformity, a manifestation of the global Taghanic unconformity, surface not only the upper half of the Windom Member, but also the Tully Limestone and most of the Genesee Group are missing. The North Evans is overlain by a thin dark, laminated shale and ledge forming brownish, concretionary styliolinid packstone, the Genundewa Limestone.
This section demonstrates a number of features. First, the lower beds of the Windom shale record relatively shallow water diverse large coral assemblage in the Bay View bed suggesting a position upramp of those seen further to the northeast. The Windom also shows strong condensation without loss of marker beds. Yet, despite this thinness, the facies of the upper Windom record mainly dysoxic gray mudstones that probably accumulated in relatively sediment starved basinal settings to the west of a late Givetian depocenter.

STOP 2. Penn Dixie Shale Pit Site
This disused shale pit has served as an important reference section for the upper Hamilton Group for more than 40 years. Originally a quarry for clay for the Penn Dixie Cement company, this shale pit has been conserved as the site of the Penn Dixie Paleontological and Outdoor Education Center operated by the Hamburg Natural History Society for the past two decades. This is a highly active educational and fossil collecting site recently rated as the number one fossil park in the US (see http://www.penndixie.org). The complete exposure of the Windom Member along the gently sloping quarry floor provides a reference section for this unit, which is here exposed to better advantage than those along Smoke Creek in the nearby village of Windom; it still affords the most accessible section for the entire Windom Member and adjacent units; fossil collecting is permitted here for a small fee.
The Penn Dixie succession was originally described by Brett and Baird (1982), who provided a stratigraphic column, herein reproduced with minor revisions. The contact of the Tichenor Limestone and lower Windom beds, a focus of this trip, are exposed in the northeast corner of this quarry. As at Pike Creek the lower Windom Ambocoelia beds are highly condensed and overlain by the richly fossiliferous Bay View bed that here yields thousands of specimens of Cystiphylloides, Heliophyllum, and other rugosans as well as Spinatrypa, Pseudoatrypa, Mediospirifer, Rhipidomella Protodouvillina, Megastrophia and others. Of particular note here are the excavations by amateur fossil collectors in the Smoke Creek bed. This bed yields very abundant Amplexiphyllum, and Stereolasma corals and the brachiopods Ambocoelia umbonata, "Mucrospirifer" consobrinus and several others, but it is most noted for its abundant and frequently articulated trilobites. Since its discovery and description by Brett and Baird (1982, 1983) and Speyer and Brett (1986) this thin calcareous mudstone has yielded many hundreds of complete prone and enrolled specimens of the trilobites Eldredgeops rana and Greenops boothi.
The remainder of the Windom Shale, substantially thicker here than at Pike Creek is sparsely fossiliferous shale. However, there are several other interesting levels including the A, B and C, D, E beds, comprising thin concretionary limestones in the mid Windom Shale and the overlying "Penn Dixie" pyritic beds, which have yielded abundant pyritic and limonitic molds of nuculid bivalves, nautiloids and less common goniatites and enrolled Greenops trilobites (see Brett et al, 1991). The Amsdell bed forms a low platform in the quarry floor and yields prolific specimens of the large ambocoeliid, Emanuella praeumbona. This is a key marker bed, traceable at least to Schenevus in eastern New York State.
The southern rim of the quarry shows the upper contact of the Windom with the North Evans Limestone which here has yielded abundant placoderm plates, cladodid shark teeth and ptyctodont crushing teeth. This unit also contains reworked clasts and Emanuella brachiopods, derived from the Windom Shale.

STOP 3. (Optional) Cazenovia Creek at Northrup Road.
This classic locality provides an excellent view of the upper Hamilton Group. Depending upon creek conditions it may be possible to examine the succession of upper Ludlowville Wanakah Shale with a prolific diverse brachiopod fauna and overlying limestones, comprising a remnant of the uppermost Ludlowville Formation Jaycox Member, represented by the basal Hills Gulch bed with abundant large favositid corals and the overlying Tichenor Limestone which caps a low waterfall in the creek near Northrup Road. If creek conditions are extremely low it may be possible to proceed upstream about 300 meters from the waterfall to a prominent cliff exposing most of the Windom Shale Member overlain at a sharp contact with the Genesee black shale with local lenses of Leicester Pyrite, a reworked lag of pyrite and bones (Baird and Brett, 1986). The still thin Ambocoelia beds of the lower Windom are poorly exposed in the creek bed above the falls. The base of the cliff section, which at this writing has been relatively clear of talus, exposes the Bay View and Smoke Creek bed. Here the Bay View beds are somewhat expanded in thickness from just a few centimeters at western sections to nearly a meter at this locality, and shows a series of three or four concretionary limestones. Although this expanded mudstone is more sparsely fossiliferous than at Lake Erie, atrypid brachiopods and Mediospirifer remain abundant. The "flagship" Bay View taxon Spinatrypa spinosa is exceedingly rare at this location, although Pseudoatrypa remains common, and larger rugosans such as Cystiphylloides and Heliophyllum are absent, but large Amplexiphyllum and small specimens of the "gumdrop"-shaped tabulate Pleurodictyum are relatively common here. A meter-thick, shaly succession separates the main Bay View beds and the Smoke Creek beds; this yields scattered Amplexiphyllum and "Mucrospirifer" consobrinus. The Smoke Creek beds here form a low riffle in the creek and as elsewhere yield relatively common articulated trilobites; however, corals and brachiopods are notably less common here than in the west. The majority of the thick cliff face is composed of the mid Windom Shale; the "A-B" and "C-D-E beds" (Brett and Baird, 1982; Figure 3 herein) appear well up in the cliff as clusters of thin tabular concretionary limestones, and again, the Emanuella-rich concretionary limestone of the Amsdell bed occurs just below the Leicester Pyrite at the Taghanic unconformity which has here cut into the Windom removing several beds present to the west.

STOP 4. (Optional) Buffalo Creek at old Bullis Road bridge.
The bed and banks of Buffalo Creek provide another classic section of the lower Moscow Formation featured in a number of previous field guides. North (downstream) from the old Bullis road bridge nearly to the newer high bridge, the same series of ledge-forming limestones at the Ludlowville-Moscow Formation boundary seen at Cazenovia (i.e., Hills Gulch bed of Jaycox Member, Tichenor Member at base of Moscow, Menteth Limestone and a thin remnant of the lower Kashong Member) are well exposed and form a low waterfall and series of riffles in the creek bed. To the south of the old bridge the lower Windom Shale the medium gray shales of the lower Windom Member are readily visible. If water level is relatively low it may be possible to walk about 150 meters upstream (east) from the bridge to examine the Bay View and Smoke Creek beds, here at one of their most basinal and thickest sections. A slightly enhanced dip brings these beds rapidly down to the level of the creek bed. A series of six thin rhythmic concretionary limestones marks the position of the Bay View beds. These beds and the intervening shales are rather sparsely fossiliferous but close examination shows the presence of very scattered but often very well preserved fossils. These include the coral Amplexiphyllum, rare Pleurodictyum, and the brachiopods Pseudoatrypa, Athyris, and Mediospirifer commonly articulated and in life position. This is a taphonomic expression of probably more rapid overall burial rates at this section. These beds are overlain by a rather thick sparsely fossiliferous shale with rare small corals and "Mucrospirifer" consobrinus, The overlying Smoke Creek bed as at most all locations is a 0.6 meter interval of stacked light gray weathering concretionary argillaceous limestones. Corals are rare, but articulated prone and enrolled trilobites are still commonly found at this location.
Buffalo Creek provides a glimpse of some of the most distal, expanded facies of the lower Windom Bay View and Smoke Creek beds. The presence of local clusters of in situ brachiopods is symptomatic of relatively high rates of burial, which prevented local shifting of skeletons. For the same reason larger corals and Spinatrypa brachiopods are absent perhaps because waters were too deep and/or turbid here in contrast to sites in western Erie County.

STOP 5A. Cayuga Creek at Clinton Road, Cowlesville, NY.
This is yet another classic locality for the upper Hamilton Group and Genesee Formation. A low water fall just South of the Clinton Road bridge shows the upper exposed beds of the Windom Shale in sharp and locally angular unconformity with the overlying Genesee. Locally, lenses of the Leicester Pyrite up to 0.5 m across occur along this contact. These are interbedded with black Geneseo Shale which locally contains the Genesee succession including a possible westernmost vestige of the Middle-Upper Devonian boundary Lodi Bed, concretionary beds of the Penn Yan Shale, a thin remnant of the north Evans bone bed and the overlying Genundewa limestone has been discussed in detail by Baird et al. (2006).
Of interest here is the upper Windom, which shows distinctive pyritic concretionary shales and a thin shell hash bed that occur immediately below the contact with the Leicester Pyrite. These beds lies within the mid Windom, well below the Amsdell bed. Hence, the higher Windom succession seen at sections such as Penn Dixie Quarry and Cazenovia Creek to the west have been removed here. The other intriguing aspect of this section is a perceptible angularity on the Windom-Genesee contact notable by the removal of a brachiopod rich hash and convergence of an uppermost concretionary bed with the sharp contact of the Genesee black shale northward along the creek bank.

STOP 5B. (optional) Cayuga Tributary, West Alden
The Bay View and Smoke Creek beds are not seen on Cayuga Creek, but are exposed poorly on a nearby tributary of Cayuga Creek about 1 mile to the N. Here, the Smoke Creek beds are very sparsely fossiliferous though still containing occasional articulated trilobites. Seemingly, this is the least fossiliferous, thickest and most mud rich facies of this succession suggesting a position deepest in the basin. The Bay View beds have nearly faded at this point.

STOP 6. Murder Creek 1 mile S of US 20 Darien Center, NY
This small outcrop provides an exceptional and accessible view of the Windom Member in sharp unconformable contact with the Genesee black shales again with pods of Leicester Pyrite marking the contact. At this meridian the Taghanic unconformity has cut out most of the upper and middle Windom Shale such that the contact lies just two meters above the Smoke Creek bed. The latter is well exposed in the creek bank opposite the farmhouse. The Bay View beds and underlying Ambocoelia succession are exposed at a low falls just downstream and comprise a series of concretionary beds with a capping layer of crinoidal and brachiopod rich debris. The corals Amplexiphyllum and Pleurodictyum are present in shales above the falls in beds rich in the large chonetid Longispina as well as atrypids and Mediospirifer.

4: HINDCASTING, FORECASTING, AND CONTROLLING EROSION AT THE WESTERN NEW YORK NUCLEAR SERVICE CENTER
Lee M. Gordon
LMG@nyserda.ny.gov
Christopher S. Andrzejewski
CSA@nyserda.ny.gov
Paul J. Bembia
PJB@nyserda.ny.gov
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
West Valley, NY 14171
INTRODUCTION
The Western New York Nuclear Service Center (Center), comprising 3,340 acres approximately 30 miles southeast of Buffalo, New York (Figure 1), is the site of the only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing facility that has operated in the United States. As a result of reprocessing activities and shallow-land disposal of radioactive waste, significant inventories of long-lived radioactive materials are present at the site. Although significant decontamination and decommissioning of site facilities has occurred over the past two decades and continues today, the state and federal agencies managing the site are evaluating a range of options between in-place closure and removal of the remaining facilities and contamination. In order to evaluate decommissioning options for the site, the agencies are working to better understand how erosion has shaped the site in the past and how it will continue to do so far into the future. Given inherent uncertainties in hindcasting/forecasting of erosion and the dynamic nature of the local upland stream systems, it is appropriate that the current focus of erosion controls be on the near-term (decades) in areas close to critical site facilities.

STOP 1. The Ashford Office Complex
Trip participants will meet at the office of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to sign visitor forms and watch a safety video.
Travel to and enter West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) andWestern New York Nuclear Service Center (WNYNSC), 10282 Rock Springs Rd.,West Valley, NY 14171 (Lat: 42.448975, Long: -78.657178):
Note: In order to enter the WVDP and WNYNSC, you are required to be escorted at all times by a NYSERDA employee.

STOP 2-5. (WVDP) and (WNYNSC)
West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) and Western New York Nuclear Service Center (WNYNSC)
STOP 2. Erdman Brook Erosion Controls Grade control and armored pool-riffle sequences for mitigating knickpoint erosion. Installed 2009-2012.
STOP 3.. Franks Creek Erosion Controls Grade control and armored pool-riffle sequence for mitigating knickpoint erosion. Installed 2013.
STOP 4. Buttermilk Creek Active Landslide 180' landslide on west bank of Buttermilk Creek. Last major slide event during flood of August 9, 2009. Exposures of glacial till and lacustrine sediments.
STOP 5. Abandoned Hanging Meander A 5,000-year old cutoff meander high on the valley wall.

STOP 6. Scoby Dam, Scoby Hill Rd., Springville, NY
Visit Cattaraugus Creek near the confluence with Buttermilk Creek for discussion of base level control.

STOP 7. Connoisarauley Creek, ConnoisarauleyRd. North,West Valley, NY
Visit large stream terraces for discussion of aggradation/degradation over past 1000 years.

5: FIELD MUSINGS ON GLACIAL AND GEO-POLITICAL BOUNDARIES IN WESTERN NEW YORK
Randy J. Woodbury, MS, adjunct faculty
woodbury@fredonia.edu (corresponding contact)
Richard A. Gilman, PhD, emeritus faculty
Michael D. Jensen, MS, alumnus
State University of New York at Fredonia
Geosciences, Fredonia NY 14063
INTRODUCTION
Glaciation was literally a heavy influence on the topography in Chautauqua County, New York’s westerly and southerly boundary with Pennsylvania. We will visit relic shorelines of pro-glacial lakes that occupied the Erie basin as ice near the Buffalo area dammed easterly flow; we will see that the shorelines are now tilted from post-glacial isostatic rebound and how geodetic evidence suggests the rebound continues. We will visit ice marginal features such as eskers, sub-glacial meltwater channels and deltas, and an apparent sub-aqueous recessional moraine. We will visit one or more “pop-up” structural features in the otherwise flat-lying Devonian stratigraphy, possibly the result of glacier-weight unloading. We will visit the inter-state boundaries to explain how George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and other early American leaders strategically determined the geographic interface between New York and Pennsylvania, to see the field challenges facing government surveyors who marked the lines, and learn how glacial-related geologic features defined the westerly line of New York.

5: FIELD MUSINGS ON GLACIAL AND GEO-POLITICAL BOUNDARIES IN WESTERN NEW YORK

Following old Early Lake Warren Beach

Passing Webster Pioneer Cemetery.
This is an undisturbed Lake Whittlesey high water mark.

Profile in Guidebook. To the south is a channel

Channel visible to the right between Ellicott and Webster Road
Channel visible to the right between Ellicott and Webster Road to the North.

Crossing Little Canadaway creek

Crossing channel that was parallel and under the ice front

Following Lake Whittlesey Ridge

Passing a grape vineyard to the right that was relocated
Passing a grape vineyard to the right that was relocated while many cubic yards of gravel was removed to build to prisons in Portland, New York

Farmhouse on wave washed delta deposits
Farmhouse on wave washed delta deposits reached by Lake Whittlesey waters. Antenna to the South is next to Luensman Overlook.

Distal part of the delta which contains the Portland Pioneer Cemetery.
Passing Cemetery Road between roads toward distal part of the delta which contains the Portland Pioneer Cemetery.

STOP 1. Eskers, get your rock hammers out here.
During either a period during a stage of late Lake Arkona or a period during an early stage of Lake Whittlesey, a long series of high-volume sub-glacial meltwater channels drained the southerly edge of ice that advanced southwesterly in the Erie basin to the area now Chautauqua County. The lowest of these meltwater channels carved out large amounts of local Devonian inter-bedded shales and siltstones as it emptied into, and formed a large delta in, either late Lake Arkona or early Lake Whittlesey. See Figure 1 for locations of the channel, the delta, and the delicate eskers likely formed near a wasting ice margin. We will observe evidence that waves washed the northerly ends of the eskers at the beach elevation of the pro-glacial lake that drained the Erie basin westerly during this glacial stage. At Stop Ten we will see apparent sub-aqueous recessional moraines that seem to correlate with glacial events forming the meltwater channel, the delta, the beach ridge, and the eskers.
At Stop One we will stand at the former water level – as surveyed by differential leveling for this project with the help of graduate student Bobbi Jo Gibbons – that snubbed the esker noses about 14,000 years ago, then walk the sinuous top of the esker and muse on what the feature contains within. We will get lucky as the grape-farmer owner has cut a cross-sectional path through the esker and we can take out our rock picks to better examine the core of mostly local and angular material with some sorting and stratification.

Profile in Guidebook where all levels of Lake Warren were crossed.

Rise onto Whittlesey beach.
Possibly due to the exposure of the Shumla Siltstone at this location. Crossing recessional moraines as we head up the hill.

STOP 2. Luensman Park (with restrooms also available here)
Luensman Overview Park sits atop the Lake Escarpment End Moraine. Views northerly give a glimpse of current Lake Erie and the higher and older relic shorelines of Lake Warren which United States Route 20 generally follows here, and of the even higher and older Lake Whittlesey which Webster Road follows here. Author Gilman assisted in the development of this gem in the county parks system by authoring a brochure on its geologic history, and he will give another of his hilltop lectures from the site. A nature trail, with its own guidebook at the trail head, is a nice addition to the original park and is highly recommended for those who can re-visit this stop at a more leisurely pace.

Notice the hummocks on both sides of the road.

Old road commissioned by the Holland Land Company
Old road commissioned by the Holland Land Company which passes right over the continental divide.

Kettle Hole Lake

Clever Store run by one of the original Geology Graduates
Clever Store run by one of the original Geology Graduates from S.U.C. at Fredonia

Crossing Drumlins

Stop 3 Pioneer Cemetery at top of Drumlin on Holland Land Company Town Line
We will cross and ride the ridge of the continental divide between the Great Lakes Drainage Basin and the Mississippi Drainage Basin as we move to this stop. We will pass Bear Lake, a kettle lake at the northerly end of a broad outwash plain. We will then cross perpendicularly across a drumlin field along a town line road surveyed and cut through wilderness more than 200 years ago. Our stop is at the summit of one drumlin at a spot offering great views toward Buffalo, the area thought to be the source of the most recent glacial lobe advance southwesterly in the Erie basin and also views to the northwest, the orientation of the drumlin field and the likely source of an older pulse of glaciation that traveled across the continental divide and beyond the southerly end of what is now Chautauqua County. After this stop, we will drive through the quaint village of Cassadaga and see its three inter-connected kettle lakes as we move southerly down the easterly side of a wide valley of outwash – a filled-in finger lake perhaps?

Three Kettle Hole Lakes

Ridge on Right covered by Drumlins.

Kame on Left

On Town Line Road
You can see several miles ahead as this road was also commissioned by the Holland Land Company in 1798.

STOP 4. Ross Mills Overlook
An excellent perch for pensive musings on geology, this is a stop above the pioneer settlement of Ross Mills with a breathtaking panorama of the wide outwash-filled valley below and the hills in Pennsylvania unreached by glaciers many miles to the south.

Cemetery in Valley Fill

Outlet of Cassadaga, Chautauqua, Conewango, and Chadakoin River
Straight ahead the outlet of Cassadaga, Chautauqua, Conewango, and Chadakoin Rivers all came together

Storage facilities for the Jamestown aquifer

STOP 5. Shale Latitude Stone
In 1786 and 1787, brothers Andrew, Joseph, and Benjamin Ellicott represented “Pennsylvania President” Benjamin Franklin – others represented New York – to blaze a survey line to Lake Erie along 42 degrees North Latitude, the boundary between the two states. About every 20 miles, astronomic readings were made by Andrew Ellicott and stones were there marked and set. We will visit a rare remaining stone. In 1781, New York had ceded lands west of the meridian through the west end of Lake Ontario to the United States, although that boundary was not established until US President George Washington ordered it surveyed in 1789 and 1790 when the Ellicott brothers represented the United States for that task. Pennsylvania hoped Chautauqua Lake would be in Pennsylvania. Figure Four is a map sent to Washington from the 1787 work of the Ellicotts for which Washington returned a letter of hope that Chautauqua Lake might indeed go to Pennsylvania, but Figures Five and Six are maps drawn by Andrew Ellicot filed, respectively, with the Holland Land Company in Amsterdam and with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, showing Chautauqua Lake and its surrounds were found by his survey completed and marked in 1790 to be in New York.

Salamanca re-entrant to the right.

STOP 6. LUNCH (with restrooms also available here)
Lunch at the Erlandson Overlook Park, where we have views of glacial-carved and outwash-filled valleys, including the former valley of a northerly flowing Allegheny River, and views toward the un-glaciated Salamanca Re-entrant where the river now flows south.

Passing Ripley Water Treatment Plant

Crossing Lake Whittlesey Beach

STOP 7. Three boundary monuments with an excellent story.
The northwesterly corner of New York is marked by granite stones set in 1884 to replace the 1790 marks placed by Andrew Ellicott. Another large stone monument is near here and we will read its ornate and elaborate markings. For this field trip, modern geodetic surveying was used to establish the latitude and longitude of the stones tied to the current reference ellipsoid to field-discuss the accuracies of the original surveys done centuries ago.

STOP 8. Pop-Up at Lake Shore
Pop-Up at Lake Shore by Ripley’s Wastewater Treatment Plant. Stops 8 and 9 show fascinating structural features as the usually flat-lying Devonian strata in Chautauqua County near Lake Erie has “popped up” – and perhaps due to glacier-weight unloading. Geodetic leveling research (Figure 10, Woodbury 1992) shows continuing local post-glacial rebound, so is present isostatic adjustment a key to these past effects?

STOP 9. Pop-Up at Ripley Beach
Stops 8 and 9 show fascinating structural features as the usually flat-lying Devonian strata in Chautauqua County near Lake Erie has “popped up” – and perhaps due to glacier-weight unloading. Geodetic leveling research (Figure 10, Woodbury 1992) shows continuing local post-glacial rebound, so is present isostatic adjustment a key to these past effects?

STOP 10. Hummocky Terrain where there should be lake bottom sediments.
Heading back to campus we will stop to see hummocky terrain that seems to correlate with the eskers we first visited, and the research theory in progress is that these mounds are sub-aqueous recessional moraines formed as ice calved away in a westward flowing Lake Whittlesey.

STOP 11. Lake Bluff Exposure at Lake Erie State Park
Lake Erie State Park takes us to a dramatic glacial stratigraphic section, a yearly adventure for geomorphology students and a pleasant Pleistocene place for our closing muse.

6: AVULSION BY CHAUTAUQUA CREEK
William Boria
Chautauqua County Department of Health, Mayville, NY 14724
boriaw@co.chautauqua.ny.us
Victoria Boria
Gustavus Adolphus Learning Center, Jamestown, NY 14701
vicki2102@fairpoint.net
Bryan Mentley
mentleyb@co.chautauqua.ny.us
During December 2005 Chautauqua Creek cut through a high (10 to 30 meters) interfluve abandoning an oxbow of about 100 meters diameter. Sections of the interfluve were composed of glacially-deposited and buried outwash and shale bedrock, originally photographed by Dr. Ernie Muller ca.1960 (Muller 1963). The 1999 NYSGA trip to this site examined pre-avulsion features. The features of the 2005 break-through and 5-to-8 meter drop in stream-bed elevation are visually crisp. The location is an outstanding example of directly-juxtaposed, temporally-contrasted features. Interfluves preserve the contents of a glacially buried-valley that was cut obliquely by modern Chautauqua Creek; shale-sediment buried-valley contacts are preserved in modern valley walls. The approach to this site involves splash-hiking the shale creek-bed for a mile or more. The route begins down a gravel trail with switch-backs, about 300 feet of relief. Cone-in-cone structures, pop-up folds and fossils can be viewed in the creek-bed shale along the way. In addition, Chautauqua Creek serves as the primary drinking water source for the Village of Westfield. Water supply history, watershed protection and current/future source water issues will also be discussed. This trek is very scenic, having been considered as a possible location for a state park in contention with Allegheny State Park. Above-the-ankle soft boots or other foot-wear that can get wet are good options for the creek walk.

6: AVULSION BY CHAUTAUQUA CREEK

STOP 1. Outlet ravine of Minton Reservoir.
Park on the roadside. This will be a brief stop to peer into the ravine and observe the nature of the buried valley fill and contrast these materials to those at Stop 2 and to see the Village of Westfield’s Minton Reservoir.

STOP 2. Wet foot trek into Chautauqua Gulf
Avulsion by Chautauqua Creek (approximately a 1.3 mile hike one way).

7: MICROBIALITES WITHIN THE EURYPTERID-BEARING BERTIE GROUP OF WESTERN NEW YORK AND ONTARIO, CANADA.
Samuel J. Ciurca, Jr.
Rochester, New York
The Bertie Group is well known throughout the world as the repository of a fantastic suite of relatively rare arthropods – the eurypterids, and specimens have found their way into museums worldwide. Eurypterid specimens have been collected by the thousands ever since their discovery in 1817, but some aspects of their occurrence have gone mostly unnoticed. Increasingly, in recent years, I have noticed more and more that many (if not most) occurrences are associated in one way or another with a variety of microbialite morphotypes.
The occurrence of the eurypterid-bearing waterlimes is part of a little-understood cyclic sequence (Ciurca, 1973 and later) and it is now obvious that the newly observed microbialites (stromatolites, thrombolites and algal mats) are inherently involved with this cyclicity. Researchers should find the Bertie Group ripe for study in what otherwise sometimes looks like a boring sequence of dull, relatively unfossiliferous rocks.
The Bertie Group, of course, probably inherited part of its depositional regime from the earlier Salina Basin where previously very thick red-beds (Vernon-Bloomsburg), dolostone and evaporites (Syracuse Fm.) and dolomitic and argillaceous beds (Camillus Fm.) were laid down. Judging from what we see in upstate New York, the outcrop belt follows a northern shoreline and some of the units within the Bertie Group even appear like strand-line deposits (upper beds of some of the waterlime units)

7: MICROBIALITES WITHIN THE EURYPTERID-BEARING BERTIE GROUP OF WESTERN NEW YORK AND ONTARIO, CANADA.

STOP 1. Glen Park (Ellicott Creek, Williamsville)

STOP 2. Akron Falls Park (Murder Creek).

STOP 3. Indian Falls, Tonawanda Creek, town of Pembroke.

On left, 1911 Steamshovel, may have be used at Panama Canal.

STOP 4. Neid Road Quarry in Onondaga Limestone
Neid Road Quarry in Onondaga Limestone and some portions of the Bertie Group (also Silurian-Devonian boundary).

9: MIDDLE – UPPER DEVONIAN STRATA ALONG THE LAKE ERIE SHORE, WESTERN NEW YORK
D. Jeffrey Over
Dept. of Geological Sciences
SUNY-Geneseo
Geneseo, NY 14454
Gordon C. Baird
Dept. of Geosciences
SUNY-Fredonia
Fredonia, NY 14063
William T. Kirchgasser
Dept. of Geology
SUNY-Potsdam
Potsdam, NY 13676
The Middle and Late Devonian succession along the New York State Lake Erie shoreline and exposures in adjacent creeks includes numerous dark gray and black shale units that record dysoxic to near anoxic marine substrate conditions near the northern margin of the subsiding Appalachian foreland basin. Contrary to common perception, this basin was often not stagnant; evidence of current activity and episodic oxygenation events are characteristic of many units. Lag deposits of detrital pyrite roofed by black shale, erosional runnels, and cross-stratified deposits of tractional styliolinid grainstone are evidence of episodic, moderate to high energy events within the basin. This trip will highlight the transitions in the basin from gray shales to dark shales, often characterized by pyrite-rich lag deposits, phosphate, conodont, fish beds, and concentrations of carbonate material, as well as the Naplesites epibole surface associated with the Belpre Ash suite in the lower Rhinestreet Formation. Three stops will showcase strata associated with Middle and Late Devonian extinction events – the Taghanic Onlap and the “Conodont Bed” of the North Evans Limestone that marks the Givetian-Frasnian boundary in western New York – a truncation of the more conformable transition to the east, and the Frasnian-Famennian boundary interval, one of several Late Devonian extinctions and the marker of a significant global crisis that led to the demise of the widespread and diverse Devonian reef community.

9: MIDDLE – UPPER DEVONIAN STRATA ALONG THE LAKE ERIE SHORE, WESTERN NEW YORK

STOP 1A. Conrail Bridge over Eighteenmile Creek
South Creek Road near North Evans, South of NY 5, north of US 20. Proceed from parking area eastward on old railroad grade and down slope on south side to creek. This section exposes the upper Windom Shale, North Evans type section, very thin Penn Yan, Genundewa Limestone, West River Shale, Middlesex, Cashequa, and the lower Rhinestreet on either side of the stone bridge (Figs. 4-7).
This section shows the Windom Member-North Evans Limestone contact as a knife-sharp boundary separating gray Windom Shale bearing light gray concretions from dark, dysoxic beds of the Genesee Group (Fig. 4). The North Evans Limestone is a 6-12 cm thick lag accumulation dominantly composed of crinoidal debris, but also characterized by abundant conodonts, glauconitic grains, fish debris, and reworked concretions (Fig. 4). The North Evans grades into styliolinid grainstone facies of the overlying Genundewa, sometimes separated by thin styliolinid-rich shale assigned to the Penn Yan. However, further downstream from that bridge to the northwest, a succession of creek bank sections shows dramatic thinning of the North Evans Limestone with the appearance of the feather edge of the dark shale as a nodular parting above the lag unit. Moreover, the North Evans undergoes a lateral, spectral change from a thick crinoidal unit to a thin layer of mixed carbonate grains and detrital pyrite that is distinctly more “Leicester”-like (Fig. 4). In the next key section (Fig. 4) along the Old Lakeshore Road the intervening shale is 10-11 cm-thick and the North Evans Limestone is only about 2-3 cm-thick. This intervening shale unit is herein interpreted as being a local basinal facies of the Genundewa Limestone in that its upper contact is conformable (non erosional) with the Genundewa Limestone. The westward North Evans allochem transition from dominantly calcareous to largely insoluble grains, accords closely to the appearance of the overlying dark shale, and it suggests that carbonate dissolution of the exposed lag was more intense in the more basinal subenvironment of Stop 1 than at localities further to the northeast.
At Stop 1 the North Evans Limestone rests on the Taghanic Composite Unconformity, a disconformity of large time-magnitude. Based on comparison with more continuous Devonian sections further east, the section at Lake Erie is severely truncated; approximately one third of the Windom Member, the entire overlying Tully Formation, and all of the succeeding Geneseo and Penn Yan formation successions are absent at Stop 1 (Figs. 3, 4). The North Evans Limestone is a complex lag blanket famous for its fish material (Hussakoff and Bryant, 1918, Bryant, 1921, Turner, 1998) and conodonts (Hinde, 1879, Bryant, 1921, Huddle, 1974, 1981). North Evans conodonts are exceedingly abundant and diverse in species and types of elements. Elements of the North Evans fauna, both its fish debris and conodonts, can be traced from Erie County to the Genesee Valley. Preservation of the conodont elements is distinctive and varies from complete and pristine (light amber-colored) to broken, dark (almost black), and degraded (Color Alteration Index is 2 to 3). Colors of some of the fish debris are red, orange, gray and blue. The taphonomic history of the North Evans debris is complex and tests the limits of chronostratigraphic resolution (Kirchgasser and Koslowski, 1996; Kirchgasser and Vargo, 1998; Kirchgasser, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004). The final taphonomic (burial age) of the North Evans material correlates to the youngest zone conodont in the mix, which is Ancyrodella recta of the upper part of Lower Frasnian MN Zone 2 (Kirchgasser, 1994); early whorls of the Lower Frasnian goniatite Koenenites (also MN 2 age) have been recovered from North Evans conodont residues at the type section at Eighteenmile Creek (Fig. 4) and in lenses within the Genundewa Limestone at Linden in Genesee County. The North Evans, as with most lag beds, poses a depositional paradox; even though the lag content records an enormous span of time, the actual final depositional event producing the bed may have been geologically instantaneous.
The Genundewa Limestone at Stop 1 is a 30-40 cm-thick ledge composed of styliolinid grainstone-packstone carbonate (Fig. 4). It is typically brownish gray, massive to nodular, limestone which sometimes weathers into thinner, flaggy beds. Aside from Styliolina and the small bivalve Pterochaenia, fossils are scarce, usually small, and of low diversity. The goniatites Koenenites, Acanthoclymenia, and Tornoceras, as well as Manticoceras at the very top, occur in the Genundewa, but are rare or poorly preserved here; the conodont Ancyrodella recta of upper MN Zone 2 occurs in the North Evans Limestone and at the base of the Genundewa Limestone at Linden in Genesee County (see Sunday illustrations). As noted, the Genundewa is a pelagic limestone that probably represents oxygen-stressed, sediment-starved, basin slope conditions. However, at this locality, local erosional channelization is evident locally within the limestone (Fig. 4). These channels, as well as pervasive small-scale hummocky crossbedding and widespread alignment of Styliolina throughout the Genundewa, attest to significant current activity at the substrate, probably caused by deep-storm waves. The top of the Genundewa is gradational with the overlying shaley West River Formation; the topmost Genundewa becomes shaley and flaggy before giving way to the typical alternation of thin black and gray shale normally seen in the West River (Fig. 4). We herein interpret the interval from the sub-North Evans disconformity upward into the lower medial West River Formation is a Transgressive Systems Tract, starting with an erosional lowstand event recorded by the disconformity. The succeeding Genundewa is a condensed interval recording transgressive deepening within the basin and sediment-starvation on slope. A possible Maximum Flooding Surface is represented by a recurrent conodont-glauconite-bearing styliolinid bed within the basal West River Shale (Fig. 4); this conodont-rich bed has been traced westward from the Genesee Valley and is Huddle (1981) sample horizon 8122SD at Fall Brook, Geneseo (Kirchgasser et al., 1994, A-4, STOP 1, Fig. 11); it has been named the Huddle Bed in his honor (Baird et al., 2006). Early highstand facies are represented by succeeding alternations of black and gray shale. This overall transgression probably represents a hybrid eustatic and flexural event within the basin.
Proceeding up-section the West River Shale is composed of 2.5 m of dark gray shales, black shale beds, and silty interbeds that are cross bedded (Fig. 5). Horizons rich in the the pelagic bivalve Pterochaenia are common, as are beds that preserve dacryoconarids and Planolites. The Williamsburg Bed, a carbonate, wood, and conodont-rich pyritic horizon in the upper 1.5 m of the West River marks a sequence boundary and condensed interval before the onset of persistent black shale deposition in the Middlesex. The Williamsburg Bed can be traced to the Finger Lakes region (Over et al., 2002).
The Middlesex is exposed upstream from the railroad bridge. Here the Middlesex is xx m thick, composed of dense silty black shales. A lamination of pyrite and conodonts in the upper 5 cm contains Ancyrodella gigas and the lowest Palmatolepis punctata, which marks the base of MN Zone 5.
In a narrow gully on the east side of the creek the entire Cashaqua Formation is exposed. The Cashaqua is 13 m thick, consisting of light gray shale and abundant concretions that contain goniatites and dacryoconarids. Toward the top are several thin black shales and an ash bed, which is possibly part of the Belpre Ash Suite, but this has not yet been tested. The Rhinestreet Formation sharply overlies the Cashaqua – Stop 1B.

STOP 1B. Cashaqua Shale/Rhinestreet Shale contact and overlying Rhinestreet
Strata exposed on Eighteenmile Creek and on access road leading to that creek, town of North Evans, Erie County (see Fig. 6). Enter access path opposite from North Evans Cemetery. Proceed on foot down sloped path to valley bottom. Cross flat area to edge of Eighteenmile Creek.
The Cashaqua Formation of the Sonyea Group in southern Erie County is characteristically composed of gray fissile shale with a rhythmic succession of discoidal concretion bands (Buehler and Tesmer, 1963; Kirchgasser et al., 1997; Fig. 6). The fauna of this unit consists of small mollusks and brachiopods, indicative of a dysoxic setting. Most notable, is the occurrence of numerous, often poorly preserved, goniatites belonging to the genera Manticoceras and Probeloceras which are flattened within the shale and variably three dimensional inside of concretions (conodont Zone MN 5). Probeloceras is the ancestral genus of the family Beloceratidae and is followed by the genus Naplesites in the Rhinestreet Shale seen at Sturgeon Point, Lake Erie (Stop 2; Fig. 12 and Kirchgasser et al., 1994, fig. 7 for illustrations of Sonyea and West Falls Group goniatites). The prominent concretion layer with MN Zone 6 conodonts in the dark shales of the upper Cashaqua Shale is a septarian band with white or pink barite filling the shrinkage cracks and in places east of the Genesee Valley in Livingston County, replacing the shells of a rich molluscan fauna including the goniatites Manticoceras, Prochorites, Acanthoclymenia and Aulatornoceras; conodonts in the bed indicate MN Zone 6. The Prochorites is a species (P. alveolatus) known elsewhere only in Western Australia.
The Rhinestreet Formation is one of the thickest Late Devonian black shale divisions in western New York. The base is sharp and marked by a seam of diagenetic pyrite which weathers to a rusty band in bank sections. No detrital pyrite has been found on the contact, but a rich association of conodonts is reported from the basal few centimeters of black Rhinestreet shale (Huddle, 1968; Kirchgasser and Klapper, 1992; Klapper et al., 1995). Hard, well-jointed, black shale makes up most of this section. Less organic-rich, recessive weathering dark gray shale intervals, as well as beds of greenish gray shale, can also be seen (Fig. 6, 7). Conspicuous at several levels within the black shale intervals are large, often massive, septarial concretions. The black shale facies within the Rhinestreet records intervals of severe dysoxia to near-anoxia within the Devonian basin associated with a broad time interval associated with global sea level highstand (Johnson et al., 1985). This organic-rich lithofacies accumulated in a relatively deepwater, stratified basin setting west of the prograding Catskill Delta in a foreland basin already maintained by collisional thrust loading (Ettensohn, 1998; see Fig. 1). Contemporaneity of Catskill Delta progradation is splendidly shown by the eastward splaying of Rhinestreet black shale divisions into the deltaic clastic wedge and by eastward passage of organic-rich basinal facies into shoreward, coarse, fossiliferous neritic facies and terrestrial red beds (Woodrow and Sevon, 1985; see deWitt, 1960; deWitt and Colton, 1959; Colton and deWitt, 1958; Sutton, 1963, and Kirchgasser et al., (1994) for evolution of correlations and unit terminology pertaining to eastern Rhinestreet and other West Falls Group subdivisions). The 2.3 meter to 2.4 meter-thick gray shale unit above the band of large concretions is the western distal “toe” of a progradational clastic pulse extending westward from the delta complex; this fine grained turbiditic or hemipelagic sediment was probably deposited during a sea level lowstand event which allowed prodelta muds to be exported far into the basin (Fig. 1). A turbiditic origin for part of this interval is suggested by the presence of a 2 – 5 cm-thick siltstone bed at its basal contact (Fig. 6, 7); the basal surface (sole) of this layer displays erosional groove cast impressions and the top of the bed fines upward into featureless gray shale, suggestive of a turbiditic event. At the Seascape section, the basal lag of the siltstone bed yields conodonts typical of MN Zone 7-8 (Levin and Kirchgasser, 1994; Kirchgasser et al., 1994; Kirchgasser and Klapper, 1992; Fig. 7B).

STOP 1C. Upstream on the west bank
About one meter below the green-gray shale units is an excellent exposure of the Belpre Ash Suite. Two ash beds and a concretion horizon are exposed here. A third ash, possibly related, is found in the uppermost Cashaqua. The thickest altered ash bed is characterized by gray brown clays (kaolinite and mixed layered clays), bleached (pyroclastic?) micas, minor quartz, calcite, plagioclase and apatite, as well as secondary pyrite. The ash bed is graded with clay flakes in the upper part with even stronger parallel orientation than the clays in the overlying black shale. Lenses with the distinctive color and fabric of the ash occur intermittently for a few centimeters above the ash bed. The upper “thick” ash was recently dated using single zircon chemical abrasion U/Pb analysis at the facility at Boise State University to 375.32 ± 0.14 Ma. This is statistically identical to the date from ash “6” at LittleWar Gap, Tennessee, of 375.40 ± 0.13 Ma (Lanik et al., 2013). The shales between the ash beds in a 1m interval at LittleWar Gap include Palmatolepis punctata, P. housei, P. ljaschenkoae, Ancyrognathus barba, and Ancyrodella nodosa, which indicate placement in MN Zone 8. Conodonts within a 4 meter thick interval from the adjacent shale and concretions in the Rhinestreet Shale above the ash horizons include Palmatolepis ljaschenkoae, P. punctata, Polygnathus dubius, Ancyrodella nodosa s.s., and Ancyrognathus sp. L? of Klapper (Fig. 7B). The conodonts and absolute dates indicate the middle Frasnian ashes in New York State are Belpre and provide a precise date for MN Zone 8.

STOP 2. and LUNCH - Rhinestreet Formation in Lake Erie shore bluff succession
Both to the northeast of-, and southwest of, the Sturgeon Point marina and car park complex near Derby, Erie County (see Figs. 6, 7). We will, first, proceed on foot from the northeast end of the car park to the beach and follow the beach and continuous shale cliff section to a position near the outflow pipes from the Derby waterworks. The K-bentonite is not accessible here, but the gray shale unit is much easier to examine at this outcrop. Moreover, the black shale interval above the gray unit can be examined (Figs. 6, 7).
Within the gray shale unit in this locality are very thin, 0.2 – 6 cm-thick, black shale beds that often display sharp contacts and strong visual definition within the thicker gray succession. Buff gray concretions occur at two levels within the gray shale interval; these are concentrated closely below black shale bands and appear to be controlled by the presence of the bands. However, in a few places along the exposure, the thin, overlying black shale bands pinch out over the tops of the subjacent nodules. This suggests that concretion growth may have created differential paleorelief, perhaps due to early dewatering and differential settling of mud. The sharply defined thin, black bands pose an interesting question: Do they represent slow background deposition between turbiditic gray mud pulses, or do the thin black bands, themselves, represent some alternative type of rapid depositional event involving sedimentation, or resedimentation, of organic-rich sediment? Is it possible that the organic-rich sediment, instead, may have been originally pelletal, hence mobile and easily transported on the seafloor? This latter scenario, yet untested, could explain these sharp pinstripe bedforms as rapidly deposited, current-traction generated features.
To the immediate northeast of the second waterworks outlet is a problematic structural displacement or offset at the level of the gray shale unit. At the lake edge, several fractures in the lower black shale division can be seen that are filled with gray shale that displays soft-sediment shearing and fracturing. Directly across from the area of shore fractures in the cliff face the gray shale unit thins to less than a third of its normal thickness across a distance of about 80 meters. However, debris on the beach conceals the intervening area and the full nature of this structure. The shore cliff and lake edge exposure displays excellent examples of joint networks, particularly for the black shale bands. These joints are believed by Gary Lash to have evolved during thermal-burial maturation of the black shale unit as the black shale units began to function as hydraulic top seals for moving fluids migrating up from below (see Lash, 2006.) The different orientations of the various joint sets are believed to correlate to a series of far-field stress phases associated with the Allegheny orogeny (Lash and Blood, 2006).
Between 40 and 45 cm above the gray shale interval, within black shale facies, is a styliolinid-rich, hashy layer that is associated with widely-spaced, spheroidal concretions (Figs. 6, 7). Close examination of the layer shows the presence of numerous, flattened goniatites (some partially pyritized), spotty concentrations of Styliolina, fish debris, large horizontal (arthropod?) trace fossils and scattered conodonts. The goniatites first identified during a survey of this section in 2006 belong to the genus Naplesites in the family Beloceratidae. The lineage is characterized by compressed (discoidal), evolute shells with increasingly numerous, distinctly pointed lobes (and saddles) forming chevron-like patterns. The ancestor of the family is Probeloceras which in New York occurs below the Rhinestreet in the Cashaqua Shale (Sonyea Group; MN Zone 5); the group culminates with the extremely multilobed Beloceras, a genus still unknown in North America (Fig. 3). The discovery of the Naplesites horizon at Sturgeon Point is important in that its presumed position in the lower Rhinestreet (House and Kirchgasser, 1993, 2008) is confirmed and the conodonts in the bed may prove to be datable. Naplesites is otherwise rare in New York and is known only from a few specimens (two species) described by Clarke (1898) far to the east from unspecified horizons and sections in the shales around Naples in Ontario County (Canandaigua Lake meridian). Probeloceras and Naplesites (as Mesobeloceras) are illustrated in Kirchgasser et al., 1994, fig. 7).The close stratigraphic coincidence of useful conodonts, Naplesites, and the K-bentonite bed is important geochronologically and is the subject of ongoing work.
Return to vehicles and proceed by car around to the southwestern most parking area near the Sturgeon Point pier.
Proceed on foot to beach below car park and follow beach southwestward for approximately 120 meters to a low outcrop bench of black Rhinestreet shale at the lake edge.
This exposure of black shale is believed to be the top of the lower Rhinestreet and phosphatic level below the “false Cashaqua” interval. The huge septarian concretions correspond to the conspicuous level at Seascape and the level studied by Lash and Blood at Eighteenmile Creek, but the precise match of beds can not yet be made owing to the long covered interval between the two sections. Notable in this outcrop are several bands of concretions including a line of massive septarial concretions below the bench of very resistant black shale. At the top of the black shale bench are two closely-spaced horizons of small spherical to ellipsoidal, 0.3 – 4 cm diameter, phosphatic nodules. Phosphatic nodules, well known from the upper part of the New Albany Shale and the Cleveland Shale, have not been reported from the Rhinestreet. The occurrence of nodules of this type has been interpreted as evidence of nutrient upwelling and high productivity in surface waters (see Robl and Barron, 1989). What is striking here is that many, if not most, of the nodules are nucleated by fish spines and scales. Small, sand-size grains within some of the nodules may be radiolarian tests.

STOP 3. Lake Erie Beach Park. Lower Angola Formation at Point Breeze.
From parking lot walk northeast up the beach to the cliffs on the point.
There is approximately 5 m of Angola Formation here. The lower Angola consists of light gray shale with interbeds of black shale and calcareous concretions. The Pt. Breeze Goniatite Bed is the first large concretionary bed at the water line, characterized by a diverse goniatite fauna – see text.

STOP 4. Section of Pipe Creek Formation (“lower Kellwasser Bed”) and synjacent units
At Walnut Creek, Silver Creek, NY Proceed from the parking area to Walnut Creek and exposure of the Hanover Formation and Pipe Creek Formation – base of the Java Group, and the underlying Angola Shale. The lowest strata at this site downstream from the US 20 bridge are the gray, silty, bioturbated Angola Formation of the West Falls Group. This is abruptly capped by the resistant, black, and well jointed Pipe Creek Formation of the Java Group (Fig. 8) that forms a bench in the stream. The 0.6 meter-thick Pipe Creek succession is followed upstream in the floor of the creek and bank by softer, nodule-rich, gray and black shale facies of the Hanover Formation (Fig. 8).
The black Pipe Creek shale consists of massive, organic-rich facies that contrasts markedly with both the underlying Angola and overlying Hanover. The base of the Pipe Creek is abrupt on the Angola with the development of abundant diagenetic pyrite in the uppermost Angola. No erosional, detrital pyrite has been found at the contact, but a profound change in microtexture is seen as one passes from the bioturbated, pyrite- suffused, uppermost Angola, into the laminated, black Pipe Creek (Fig. 9). As noted in the text, this unit has now been found to correlate to the “Lower Kellwasser Bed” which marks a major ecological reorganization and extinction event in global sections.
Fossils are common in the lower Hanover, but are usually very small. Diminutive gastropods, bivalves, and ostracodes make up most of the fauna found in concretions or as pyritized shells in the gray shale. Goniatites, important as chrono-stratigraphic markers, occur in the shales and concretions as well. There is a rich but still undescribed pyritic goniatite fauna at the Pipe Creek/Angola Shale contact beneath the US 20 bridge, overWalnut Creek, discovered years ago by G. Kloc; the pyrite lag is often covered in sediment and/or below water. Upstream of the bridge Crickites lindneri and Sphaeromanticoceras aff. S. rickardi occur in the first few meters of the Hanover Shale. Crickites lindneri is a species known also from Australia. In nodule bands in lowermost Hanover in nearby Silver Creek and in Beavermeadow Creek, Java Village, the goniatite Delphiceras cataphractum occurs. The lower Hanover goniatite levels are probably in the Crickites Goniatite Division UD I-L and probably in Conodont Zone MN 12 (House and Kirchgasser, 2008).

STOP 5. Upper Hanover and Dunkirk Shale type locality
Point Gratiot, Dunkirk, NY (see Figs. 9, 10). Exit vehicles and proceed southwest along the lake shore to exposures.
The interbedded gray and black shales of the upper Hanover are overlain by massive black shales of the Dunkirk (Fig. 10). The Point Gratiot Bed, a 15 cm thick black ledge, correlates to the “Upper Kellwasser Bed” of Late Devonian sections globally. The topmost part of this bed marks the Frasnian- Famennian extinction event of literature based on conodont work in western New York sections (see Over, 1997, 2002; Day and Over, 2002). Although the bed is composed of basinal black shale, fossils such as the probable anaptychus organ Spathiocaris, fish material, and wood debris can be found, particularly near the top of the bed. Moreover, elevated levels of Platinum Group elements occur at this level and other horizons in the boundary interval black shales (see Over et al., 1997). Above the Point Gratiot Bed is 10 cm of gray shale below the base of the thick black shale of the Dunkirk. Eastward this interval expands to several meters of gray and black shale beds (Fig. 11). The upper Hanover interval closely resembles the lower Rhinestreet gray shale unit owing to several discrete, thin, black shale bands which contrast sharply with the thicker gray lithology. Reworked pyritic burrow clasts and exhumed geopetally pyritized Tasmanites half-spheres (sensu Schieber and Baird, 2001) have been found in thin lags at the base of the thin black beds and at the base of the Dunkirk Shale. Hanover deposits below the Point Gratiot Bed are markedly more calcareous, lighter colored, and more intensely bioturbated; upward changes across the Point Gratiot Bed probably reflect combined effects of transgressive deepening in the basin and adverse biological effects associated with the Frasnian-Famennian crisis.