Here's a few more photos from the recent field trip to the Massanutten Synclinorium in the northern Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.

Some more Arthrophycus (?) trace fossils in the Massanutten Formation:

Outcrop of the Massanutten Formation on Route 678, south of Waterlick, VA. Note that the bedding is dipping to the south (reflecting the overall "canoe"-shape to the structure of the Massanutten Synclinorium... this is the "bow" of the canoe...):

Shelly horizon in the Mahantango Formation. Mainly brachiopod debris, but also crinoid columnals:

Cross-bedding in the Martinsburg Formation's Bouma sequences. This is a sample I collected on Saturday. I sawed it open on Monday, then polished it and gave it a coat of clear acrylic. Sample length is about 5 cm:

Ditto. As above, we can see clear cross-bedding here, reflecting current flow in these ancient turbidites:

Bedding / cleavage relationships expressed at an instructive outcrop in the parking lot of a pet store north of Front Royal, Virginia. Bedding is clearly visible running subhorizontally across the picture, but the rock breaks vertically: a tectonically-induced cleavage:

You could hardly ask for a better outcrop to teach bedding / cleavage relationships. Here's a medium-sized anticline in the same outcrop (note quarter, center, for scale). It clearly displays a fan of cleavage orientations. Lovely!

Lastly, on that same note, here's a sample I collected fromthat locality, with bedding planes and cleavage planes highlighted through the magic of CorelDraw. The stripes you see on the face of the sample are formed by the intersection of bedding and cleavage planes, shown schematically in red:

Labels: appalachians, field trips, fossils, primary structures, valley and ridge, virginia