Cockeysville Marble
In Delaware, predominantly a pure, coarsely crystalline, blue-white dolomite marble interlayered with calc-schist. Major minerals in the marble include calcite and dolomite with phlogopite, diopside, olivine, and graphite. Major minerals in the calc-schist are calcite with phlogopite, microcline, diopside, tremolite, quartz, plagioclase, scapolite, and clinozoisite. Pegmatites and pure kaolin deposits and quartz occur locally.
Serpentinite
Massive fine-grained dark to light yellow-green serpentinite. Contacts with the Wissahickon Formation are not exposed.
Metapyroxenite and metagabbro (undifferentiated)
Light-colored coarse-grained rocks composed of interlocking grains of light colored, fibrous amphiboles, most likely magnesium-rich cummingtonite and/or anthophyllite with possible clinochlor. These rocks become finer grained and darker as hornblende replaces some of the Mg-rich amphiboles. Associated with the metapyroxenites are coarse-grained metamorphosed gabbros composed of hornblende and plagioclase. The metapyroxenites and metagabbros are probably cumulates.
Wissahickon Formation
Interlayered psammitic and pelitic gneiss with amphibolite. Psammitic gneiss is a medium- to fine-grained biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss with or without small garnets. Contacts with pelitic gneiss are gradational. Pelitic gneiss is medium- to coarse-grained garnet-sillimanite-biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss. Unit has a streaked or flasered appearance owing to the segregation of garnet-sillimanite-biotite stringers that surround lenses of quartz and feldspar. Throughout, layers of fine to medium-grained amphibolite composed of plagioclase and hornblende, several inches to <30 feet thick or as large massive bodies, are in sharp contact with the psammitic and pelitic gneisses. An attempt has been made to show some of the amphibolites mappable at the scale of the map. Granitic pegmatite is ubiquitous and occurs at all scales. Pyroxene bearing quartzite with garnet occurs locally near the contact with the Wilmington Complex. An ultramafic lens composed of cumulus layers of serpentinized peridotite, metapyroxenite, and metagabbro occurs near Hoopes Reservoir. The ultramafic lens may be correlative with the Baltimore Mafic Complex.
Pegmatite
Coarse- to very coarse-grained granitic pegmatite with tourmaline crystals locally. Where outcrop is present, pegmatite is tabular and concordant with the regional trend of the underlying Wissahickon Formation. Lenticular xenoliths of Wissahickon gneisses occur locally in the pegmatite.
Windy Hills Gneiss
Thinly interlayered, fine- to medium-grained hornblende-plagioclase amphibolite, biotite gneiss, and felsic gneiss, possibly metavolcanic. Felsic gneisses contain quartz and plagioclase with or without microcline with minor pyroxene and/or hornblende and/or biotite. Metamorphic grade in this unit decreases from granulite facies in the northeast to amphibolite facies toward the southwest. Correlated with the Big Elk Member of the James Run Formation in Cecil County, Maryland.
Faulkland Gneiss
Predominantly fine- to coarse-grained amphibolites and quartz amphibolites with minor felsic rocks, probably metavolcanic. Major minerals are amphibole and plagioclase with or without pyroxene and/or quartz. Amphibole may be hornblende, cummingtonite, gedrite, and/or anthophyllite. Halos of plagioclase and quartz around porphyroblasts of magnetite, orthopyroxene, and garnet are common features.
Christianstead Gneiss
Coarse-grained, foliated granodioritic gneiss. Major minerals are biotite, microcline, plagioclase, and quartz. Includes thin layers of fine-grained foliated amphibolite plus large pegmatites.
Barley Mill Gneiss
Coarse-grained, foliated tonalite gneiss. Major minerals are biotite, hornblende, plagioclase, and quartz. Includes mafic enclaves or layers composed of subequal amounts of hornblende and plagioclase. Also includes a coarse-grained granitic lithology composed of biotite, microcline, plagioclase, and quartz.
Montchanin Metagabbro
Coarse-grained gabbroic and metagabbroic rocks, variably metamorphosed and deformed. Primary igneous minerals include olivine, clinopyroxene, orthopyroxene, and plagioclase.
Mill Creek Metagabbro
Coarse-grained gabbroic and metagabbroic rocks, variably metamorphosed and deformed. Primary minerals are hornblende and plagioclase.
Rockford Park Gneiss
Fine-grained mafic and fine- to medium-grained felsic gneisses interlayered on the decimeter scale. Layers are laterally continuous, but mafic layers commonly show boudinage. Felsic layers are composed of quartz and plagioclase with < 10 modal percent pyroxene. Mafic layers contain subequal amounts of plagioclase, pyroxene, and hornblende. Penetrative deformation and granulite facies metamorphism have obscured igneous fabrics and contact relationships.
Brandywine Blue Gneiss
Medium to coarse grained granulites and gneisses composed of plagioclase, quartz, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, brown-green hornblende, magnetite, and ilmenite. Mafic minerals vary from < 5-30 modal percent. A lineation due to a preferred orientation of quartz and mafic minerals is obvious on weathered surfaces. Unit contains thin, discontinuous fine-grained mafic layers.
Perkins Run Gabbronorite Suite
Fine- to coarse-grained gabbronorite and minor diorite with subophitic to ophitic textures, variably foliated or lineated. Plagioclase, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, and hornblende are major minerals; biotite and olivine locally present. Olivine typically surrounded by corona structures as described for the Bringhurst Gabbro. Contemporaneous with the Ardentown Granitic Suite.
Ardentown Granitic Suite
Medium- to coarse-grained granitic rocks containing primary orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene; includes quartz norites, quartz monzonorites, opdalites, and charnockites. Feldspar phenocrysts common. Mafic enclaves locally abundant in proximity to gabbronorites.
Bringhurst Gabbro
Coarse- to very coarse-grained gabbronoite with subophitic textures. Primary minerals are plagioclase, olivine, clinopyroxene and orthopyroxene. Olivine, where present, is surrounded by an inner corona of orthopyroxene and an outer corona of pargasitic hornblende, both with spinel symplectites. The gabbronorites locally contain abundant xenoliths of mafic Brandywine Blue Gneiss.
Iron Hill Gabbro
Black to very dark green, coarse- to very coarse-grained, uralitized olivine-hypersthene gabbronorite and pyroxenite with subophitic textures. Primary minerals are calcic plagioclase, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, and olivine. Amphibole is secondary, a pale blue-green actinolite. Olivine, when present, is surrounded by coronas similar to those in the Bringhurst Gabbro. The gabbronorite is deeply weathered leaving a layer of iron oxides, limonite, goethite, and hematite, mixed with ferruginous jasper. The jasper contains thin seams lined with drusy quartz. Contacts with the Christianstead Gneiss are covered with sediments of the Coastal Plain.
Calvert Formation
Gray to grayish-brown, clayey silt to silty clay interbedded with gray to light-gray silty to fine to coarse quartz sands. Discontinuous beds of shell are common in the sands and in the clayey silts. Found in the subsurface throughout Kent County. Interpreted to be a marine deposit. Rarely the surficial unit on the uplands in northwestern Kent County where the Columbia or Beaverdam Formations are absent. Outcrops are patchy and are too small to be shown on this map. Three major aquifers are found within the Calvert Formation in Kent County: the Frederica, Federalsburg, and Cheswold, from top to bottom, respectively (McLaughlin and Velez, 2006). Ranges up to 425 feet thick.
RI52 Quality and Geochemistry of Ground Water in Southern New Castle County, Delaware
Water samples were collected from 63 wells in southern New Castle County to assess the occurrence and distribution of dissolved inorganic chemicals in ground water. Rapid growth is projected for the study area, and suitable sources of potable drinking water will need to be developed. The growth in the study area could also result in degradation of water quality. This report documents water quality during 1991-92 and provides evidence for the major geochemical processes that control the water quality.
Columbia Formation
Yellowish- to reddish-brown, fine to coarse, feldspathic quartz sand with varying amounts of gravel. Typically cross-bedded with cross-sets ranging from a few inches to over three feet in thickness. Scattered beds of tan to reddish-gray clayey silt are common. In places, the upper 5 to 25 feet consists of grayish- to reddish-brown silt to very fine sand overlying medium to coarse sand. Near the base, clasts of cobble to small boulder size have been found in a gravel bed ranging from a few inches to three feet thick. Gravel fraction primarily quartz with lesser amounts of chert. Clasts of sandstone, siltstone and shale from the Valley and Ridge, and pegmatite, micaceous schist, and amphibolite from the Piedmont are also present. Fills a topographically irregular surface, is less than 50 feet thick, and is interpreted to be primarily a body of fluvial glacial outwash sediment (Jordan, 1964; Ramsey, 1997). Pollen indicate deposition in a cold climate during the middle Pleistocene (Groot and Jordan, 1999).



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