The Appalachian Piedmont and Atlantic Coastal Plain are physiographic provinces that are separated by the fall zone. The fall zone (also called the Fall Line) is the contact where the hard crystalline rocks of the Piedmont dip under and disappear beneath the sediments of the Coastal Plain. The landscape and rock types shown in northern Delaware are classical examples of the larger geologic features that dominate the geology of eastern North America.
The State of Delaware is located within two physiographic provinces, the Appalachian Piedmont and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The Fall Zone divides these two provinces and essentially runs parallel to Delaware Rt. 2, Kirkwood Highway.
This map shows the surficial geology of New Castle County, Delaware at a scale of 1:100,000. Maps at this scale are useful for viewing the general geologic framework on a county-wide basis, determining the geology of watersheds, and recognizing the relationship of geology to regional or county-wide environmental or land-use issues. This map, when combined with the subsurface geologic information, provides a basis for locating water supplies, mapping ground-water recharge areas, and protecting ground and surface water.
This is a map of the crystalline bedrock units in the Piedmont of Delaware and adjacent Pennsylvania. The southern boundary of the mapped area is the updip limit of the Potomac Formation (Woodruff and Thompson, 1972, 1975). Soil, regolith, and surficial deposits of Quaternary age are not shown.
William S. Schenck, a scientist with the Delaware Geological Survey, has been taking students from A.I. duPont High School on Wilmington & Western Railroad tours, observing rock outcrop locations along the way.
