You will be searching for a traditional (small) container located just off the Baughman Trail in Ohiopyle State Park. We have added a spoiler hint below, please don't decrypt unless you want to know the exact location of the cache.
Baughman Rocks Overlook is poised high above the Youghiogheny River Gorge on an upturned mass of Pottsville Sandstone. In the midst of Ohiopyle state park, the overlook provides breathtaking views in all seasons and provides a window to the geologic history of sedimentation, deformation and erosion, which the gorge has undergone over millions of years.
GEOLOGY
The Pottsville Sandstone is the foundational rock of the local mountain formations, including the Allegheny Mountains, Chestnut Ridge, and Laurel Ridge. The Pottsville Formation consists of a gray conglomerate, fine to coarse grained sandstone, and is known to contain limestone, siltstone and shale, as well as anthracite and bituminous coal. The rock is very hard and is resistant to erosion. This resistance to erosion is demonstrated by the development of numerous water falls in the Youghiogheny river gorge.
A number of geological periods, spanning millions of years, are on display in the Gorge, including the Devonian, Mississippian and Pennsylvanian Periods.
The oldest exposed rock formations date back to the Devonian Era, between 418 and 362 million years ago. These rocks are composed of brown, gray and reddish-colored sandstones and shale. These formations can be found between Victoria and Bidwell, areas visible from the overlook.
Formations from the Mississippian Period, 360 to 318 years ago, are present throughout much of the park area and are more varied in nature ranging in type from light-gray conglomerates, made up of small, white quartz pebbles, to red and green shales, to gray, very sandy limestones.
The youngest formations are from the Pennsylvanian Period. The Pennsylvanian Period lasted from 318 to 299 million years ago. During the Pennsylvanian Period, widespread swamps laid down the thick beds of dead plant material that today constitute most of the world's coal. The Pottsville Sandstone of Baughman Rocks overlook were developed during this period.
|