To claim a find on this Earthcache email your answers to the following questions to me.
1. What are the properties ( color, texture, size) of the rocks around the area?
2. If you had to categorize the rocks in the proximity, which of these would you pick. What lead you to your choice?
A. Ordovician Bald Eagle Formation (sandstone).
B. Juniata Formation (shale,siltstone).
C. Silurian Tuscarora Formation (quartzite).
The Appalachian Mountain Range was formed approximately 325 million to 260 million years ago when the Alleghanian orogeny occurred. The orogeny was caused by Africa colliding with North America. At this time North America was part of Euroamerica, while Africa was part of Gondwana. The collision formed a super continent Pangaea, which contained all major continental land masses.The collision exerted massive stress on what is now the Eastern Seaboard of North America forming a high and wide mountain range. Subsequent erosion wore down the mountain chain and spread sediments both to the east and to the west.
As the continents collided, the rock material trapped in-between was crushed and forced upward. With nowhere to go, rocks along the eastern margin of the North American continent were shoved far inland. Close to the boundary between the colliding plates, tectonic stresses contributed to the metamorphism of the rock (i.e. the transformation of igneous and sedimentary rock into metamorphic rock).
The sedimentary rock in the eastern Appalachian region was squeezed into great folds that ran perpendicular to the direction of forces. The greatest amount of deformation associated with the Alleghanian orogeny occurred in the Southern Appalachians. In that region, a series of great faults developed in addition to the folds. As the two continents collided, large belts of rock bounded by thrust faults piled one on top of another, shortening the crust along the eastern edge of North America in the North Carolina and Tennessee region by as much as 200 miles (320 km). The relative amount of deformation gradually diminishes as one travels northward. The fold belt extends northward through Pennsylvania and gradually fades in the vicinity of the New York border.
These rocks consist of Ordovician Bald Eagle Formation, Juniata Formation, and Silurian Tuscarora Formation that were folded during the Appalachian orogeny. Then eroded down. The Bald Eagle is defined as a gray to olive-gray and grayish-red, fine to coarse-grained crossbedded sandstone, Juniata Formation (shale,siltstone) is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania. It is a relative slope-former occurring between the two prominent ridge-forming sandstone units: the Tuscarora Formation and the Bald Eagle Formation in the Appalachian Mountains., and Silurian Tuscarora Formation (quartzite) is a thin- to thick-bedded fine-grained to coarse-grained orthoquartzite. It is a white to medium-gray or gray-green , sometimes will have shades of red and pink as a result of the presence of iron.
This cache will take you through a section of Penns Woods open to hunting. Please be respectful of other land users and be safe. Click here to go to the PA Game Seasons.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleghanian_orogeny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fold_(geology)