Goshen Formation(Lower Devonian)at surface, covers 5 % of this area
Goshen Formation - Well-bedded micaceous quartzite or quartz schist grading upward into light- to dark-gray, carbonaceous aluminous schist in beds 5 to 15 cm thick.
Washington Gneiss(Proterozoic Y)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Washington Gneiss - Coarse- to medium-grained hornblende-garnet amphibolite, hornblende-plagioclase gneiss and phlogopite-hornblende-plagioclase amphibolite (metabasalt).
East Berlin Formation - Reddish-brown to pale red arkosic sandstone and siltstone, and gray sandstone, gray mudstone, and black shale; interpreted as lake beds. Assigned to Newark Supergroup (Robinson and Luttrell, 1985). The East Berlin Formation of the Hartford basin contains eight facies: trough cross-bedded sandstones, horizontally stratified sandstones, interbedded sandstones and mudrocks, ripple cross-laminated siltstones, black shales, stratified mudrocks, disrupted shales, and disrupted mudstones. These facies are interpreted as a continental depositional system and are divided into two assemblages. Sandflat/alluvial plain facies assemblage (sandstones and siltstones) is composed of sheet-flood deposits. The lacustrine assemblage (shales and mudrocks) represents a saline lake-playa system (Gierlowski-Kordesch, and Rust, 1994).
Diorite at Goff Ledges - Diorite at Goff Ledges (Ogd) and similar diorite (Od) in the Windsor quadrangle. Very coarse-grained to pegmatitic, slightly foliated hornblende-plagioclase diorite, minor hornblende pyroxenite. Ogd intrudes CAZh and CAZhk. Od intrudes the Rowe Schist of the Rowe-Hawley zone.
New Haven Arkose(Upper Triassic)at surface, covers 21 % of this area
New Haven Arkose - Red, pink, and gray coarse-grained, locally conglomeratic arkose interbedded with brick-red shaley siltstone and fine-grained arkosic sandstone; boundary between Lower Jurassic (Jn) and Upper Triassic (TRn) parts is arbitrarily drawn through clastic rocks of similar lithology below gray mudstone containing Lower Jurassic palynofloral zone; TRn is continuous with and lithically similar to TRs near Northampton. Assigned to Newark Supergroup (Robinson and Luttrell, 1985).
Hampden Basalt(Lower Jurassic)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Hampden Basalt - Greenish-gray to black (weathers bright orange to brown), fine- to medium-grained, grading from basalt near contacts to fine-grained gabbro in the interior, composed of pyroxene and plagioclase with accessory opaques and locally olivine or devitrified glass.
Hawley Formation(Middle Ordovician)at surface, covers 0.7 % of this area
Hawley Formation - Black, fine-grained, splintery, rusty-weathering schist and thin dark quartzite; interlayered amphibolite commonly has plagioclase megacrysts. As used here the Hawley includes amphibolite, sulfidic rusty schists, abundant coticules, silvery schists, quartzites and quartz conglomerates, and quartz, feldspar, biotite granulites. The quartzites and quartz conglomerates occur at two positions in rocks here assigned to the Hawley. Those occurring near the top have been mapped previously as Russell Mountain Formation or as Shaw Mountain Formation. The Hawley overlies the Ordovician Barnard Gneiss and underlies Silurian and Devonian "calciferous schists" that include the westernmost Goshen Formation in MA and Northfield Formation in southern VT, the central Waits River Formation and the eastern Gile Mountain Formation. Authors believe that the Goshen, Northfield, and Waits River are facies equivalents, while the Gile Mountain is slightly younger. Map symbol indicates that Hawley is Ordovician and Silurian. 40Ar/3Ar hornblende release spectrum date of 433+/-3 Ma obtained by Spear and Harrison (1989) (Trzcienski and others, 1992).
Waits River Formation - Interbedded medium- to dark-gray, moderately rusty weathering, highly contorted, unbedded schist and punky-weathering calcareous granofels or quartzose marble, and pods and stringers of vein quartz.
Holyoke Basalt(Lower Jurassic)at surface, covers 1 % of this area
Holyoke Basalt - Thick, columnar quartz tholeiite containing local gabbroic segregations, thinks eastward; interpreted as one or more thick ponded lava flows. Assigned to Newark Supergroup (Robinson and Luttrell, 1985).
Middletown Formation ( = Ammonoosuc Volcanics of New Hampshire) - Heterogeneously interlayered dark- to light-gray, generally medium grained gneiss and granofels, ranging from quartz-biotite gneiss through felsic amphibole gneiss to amphibolite and characteristically containing anthophyllite or cummingtonite with or without hornblende. Also layers of calc-silicate rock and of biotite gneiss with quartz-sillimanite nodules.
Foliated quartz diorite(Devonian in part, probably Ordovician in part)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Foliated quartz diorite - Mainly dark-gray, medium-grained, well-foliated gneiss (locally strongly sheared, especially near contacts), composed of plagioclase, quartz, biotite, and hornblende, locally also pyroxene.
Clough Quartzite(Upper Silurian)at surface, covers 0.2 % of this area
Clough Quartzite - Quartz-pebble conglomerate, quartzite, and minor mica schist and calc-silicate rocks. Fossils at Bernardston are similar to those at Croyden Mountain, New Hampshire which indicate late Llandoverian age. Parts of the Littleton and Partridge Formations, and Clough Quartzite in MA are here reassigned to the Rangeley Formation [here geographically extended to MA]. The four mapped areas of Clough Quartzite in the Amherst area west of the Connecticut Valley border fault are now interpreted as conglomerate lenses in the Rangeley. Clough is considered the key stratigraphic unit in Bronson Hill anticlinorium because 1) it is dominated by distinctive, readily recognizable rock types, 2) where present, it is base of Silurian-Devonian sequence, resting with detectable unconformity on older rocks, and 3) it contains late Llandoverian fossils at several localities in western NH and adjacent VT, and at Bernardston, MA. Consists mostly of quartz-pebble conglomerate in which pebbles are typically deformed; other lithologies are quartz grit or white to pink, well-bedded quartzite. Locally contains some mica schist beds. On the MA State bedrock geologic map (Zen and others, 1983), thickness is locally exaggerated because at many localities, the unit was only a few meters or less thick and could not be shown at a scale of 1:250,000. Maximum thickness is 200 m on west limb of Northfield syncline. Unconformably overlies Fourmile Gneiss in Pelham dome and in Kempfield anticline, or Ammonoosuc Volcanics over most gneiss domes. Partridge Formation occurs along Clough-Ammonoosuc contact as lenses in many areas (Hatch and others, 1988).
Goshen Formation(Lower Devonian)at surface, covers 2 % of this area
Goshen Formation - Light gray-brown micaceous quartzite and quartz-mica-garnet schist in beds as much as 6 m thick. Calc-silicate granofels and rare punky-weathering calcareous granofels.
Rowe Schist(Lower Ordovician and Cambrian)at surface, covers 0.4 % of this area
Rowe Schist - Fine- to medium-grained, well-layered and foliated amphibolite; epidote-rich layers locally abundant. Includes its typical Chester Amphibolite Member at Chester, Massachusetts.
Southbridge Formation(Silurian or Ordovician or both)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Southbridge Formation - Dark- to light-gray, locally rusty, fine- to medium-grained interlayered granofels and schist, composed of quartz, plagioclase, and biotite, with muscovite in schist, and amphibole, calc-silicate minerals, K-feldspar in certain layers; also locally mappable units and thinner layers of calc-silicate rock, amphibolite, and sillimanite-garnet and sillimanite-graphite-pyrrhotite schist.
Calc-silicate granofels and gneiss - Including calcitic or dolomitic chondrodite-diopside marble, coarse hornblende-plagioclase-diopside and diopside rock, locally containing beds of lustrous muscovite-kyanite sillimanite-garnet schist.
Ammonoosuc Volcanics - Amphibolite, felsic gneiss, garnet-amphibole quartzite, and marble too thin to show separately at map scale. Gedrite, anthophyllite, cummingtonite locally abundant in amphibolite layers.
Shuttle Meadow Formation - Reddish-brown to pale red arkosic sandstone and siltstone, and gray sandstone, gray mudstone, and black shale; interpreted as lake beds. The Shuttle Meadow Formation is assigned to Newark Supergroup and is extended into MA in the Hartford basin. It consists of sandstone strata containing one interval of gray mudstone beds. The unit grades eastward along strike into a conglomeratic facies. It overlies the New Haven Arkose or Hitchcock Volcanics and underlies the Holyoke Basalt (Robinson and Luttrell, 1985).
Portland Arkose(Lower Jurassic)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Portland Arkose - Reddish-brown to maroon micaceous arkose and siltstone and red to black fissile silty shale. Grades eastward into coarse conglomerate (fanglomerate).
Mount Pisgah Member of Littleton Formation - Gray, medium-grained, well-layered (locally graded) granofels or micaceous quartzite with some schist, composed of quartz, oligoclase, biotite, garnet, and sillimanite.
Rowe Schist(Lower Ordovician and Cambrian)at surface, covers 1.0 % of this area
Rowe Schist - Light-green to light-bluish-gray schist having thin granular quartz lenses and lamellae. Kyanite and staurolite typical at higher grades.
Dalton Formation(Lower Cambrian and Proterozoic Z)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Dalton Formation - Tan weathering, muscovite-microcline quartzite and feldspathic quartzite rich in black tourmaline, locally includes thin beds of other rock types listed below.
Russell Mountain Formation - Quartzite, calc-silicate granofels, and calc-silicate marble. Correlated with the fossiliferous Shaw Mountain Formation of eastern Vermont. In original definition of Russell Mountain Formation (Hatch and others (1970), calcareous granofels on Woronoco dome was included in unit. Subsequent mapping by Stanley and others (1982) indicates that rocks mapped on Woronoco dome are different from the rest of Russell Mountain Formation and are more logically included in overlying Lower Devonian sequence (mapped as an unnamed member of Goshen Formation in fig. 3). Other than this modification and mapping a few lenses of Russell Mountain Formation just north of Massachusetts Turnpike, original definition of Russell Mountain stands. Thickness does not exceed 35 m, but its correlative in CT, the basal member of The Straits Schist of Rodgers (1982, 1985), is locally at least twice as thick. Has not been shown to correlate with either Clough Quartzite or Fitch Formation to the east. Russell Mountain Formation is highly discontinuous except near Shelburne Falls dome. Locally overlies members A and D of Cobble Mountain Formation; overlain everywhere by Goshen Formation. Silurian age is based on correlation with discontinuous lenses of similar rocks at same stratigraphic position as Shaw Mountain Formation of VT. Recent field trips with J.B. Thompson, Jr. (Harvard University) and others has raised questions as to whether many of those rocks in southern VT are actually Shaw Mountain. Shaw Mountain Formation has been assigned a firm age of late Llandoverian to Gedinnian north of Albany, VT, based on HOWELLELA (Boucot and Thompson, 1963; Konig, 1961) (Hatch and others, 1988).
Paxton Formation(Silurian)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Paxton Formation - Sulfidic magnesian biotite and magnesian cordierite schist and sillimanite quartzite. The Paxton, here of group rank, includes strata formerly mapped in CT as the Hebron Formation and in MA as the Paxton Formation. It conformably overlies the Oakdale Formation and structurally and conformably underlies the Brimfield Group. It is undivided in central MA; in northeast CT and adjacent MA it is divided into the Dudley and Southbridge Formations. Age is Late Proterozoic(?) based on the intrusion of 440 m.y. Hedgehog Hill gneiss into the overlying Brimfield Group and an age of 1188 m.y. for detrital zircons from the Paxton (Pease, 1989).
Brimfield Schist(Upper? and Middle Ordovician)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Brimfield Schist (includes Hamilton Resevoir Formation) - Gray, rusty-weathering, medium- to coarse-grained, interlayered schist and gneiss, composed of oligoclase, quartz, K-feldspar, and biotite, and commonly garnet, sillimanite, graphite, and pyrrhotite. K-feldspar partly as augen 1 to 3 cm across. Minor layers and lenses of hornblende- and pyroxene-bearing gneiss, amphibolite, and calc-silicate rock.
Coys Hill Porphyritic Granite Gneiss - Coarse-grained porphyritic microcline granite gneiss, commonly containing garnet and sillimanite with or without muscovite; continuous with the Cardigan and Ashuelot plutons of Kinsman Quartz Monzonite in New Hampshire; appears to be an early quasi-concordant intrusion within Dl.
Cobble Mountain Formation - Light-brown, fine- to medium-grained pelitic schist and granofels locally graded in beds less than 15 cm thick. Local amphibolite. Rare calc-silicate rock, feldspar gneiss, coticule and cummingtonite schist.
East Berlin Formation - Maroon siltstone, silty and sandy shale, and fine-grained silty sandstone, generally well laminated and commonly well indurated, alternating with dark fissile shale; dolomitic carbonate common in cement, concretions, and thin argillaceous laminae. Local arkose; grades eastward into coarse conglomerate close to eastern border fault. The East Berlin Formation of the Hartford basin contains eight facies: trough cross-bedded sandstones, horizontally stratified sandstones, interbedded sandstones and mudrocks, ripple cross-laminated siltstones, black shales, stratified mudrocks, disrupted shales, and disrupted mudstones. These facies are interpreted as a continental depositional system and are divided into two assemblages. Sandflat/alluvial plain facies assemblage (sandstones and siltstones) is composed of sheet-flood deposits. The lacustrine assemblage (shales and mudrocks) represents a saline lake-playa system (Gierlowski-Kordesch and Rust, 1994).
Goshen Formation(Lower Devonian)at surface, covers 0.3 % of this area
Goshen Formation - Poorly bedded Dg schist containing beds, 0.5 to 2.5 m thick, of punky-weathering calcareous pale green granofels with calc-silicate granofels rims.
Rowe Schist(Lower Ordovician and Cambrian)at surface, covers 0.4 % of this area
Rowe Schist - Gray to black, fine-grained , slightly rusty, moderately carbonaceous schist; minor fine- to medium-grained dark-gray to white quartzite. Minor lenses of rock identical to OCAr.
Cobble Mountain Formation - Red rusty-weathering schist containing thin beds of white quartz-plagioclase granofels and vitreous quartzite. Local amphibolite and thin anthophyllite amphibolite.
Glastonbury Gneiss(Middle? Ordovician)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Glastonbury Gneiss - Gray, medium- to coarse-grained, massive to well-foliated granitoid gneiss composed of oligoclase, quartz, microcline, and biotite (as patches), also epidote and hornblende in many areas, commonly associated with layers of amphibolite; elsewhere minor muscovite and garnet.
New Haven Arkose(Lower Jurassic)at surface, covers 0.3 % of this area
New Haven Arkose - Red, pink, and gray coarse-grained, locally conglomeratic arkose interbedded with brick-red shaley siltstone and fine-grained arkosic sandstone; boundary between Lower Jurassic (Jn) and Upper Triassic (TRn) parts is arbitrarily drawn through clastic rocks of similar lithology below gray mudstone containing Lower Jurassic palynofloral zone. Assigned to Newark Supergroup (Robinson and Luttrell, 1985).
Paxton Formation - Undifferentiated biotite granofels, calc-silicate granofels, and sulfidic schist. The Paxton, here of group rank, includes strata formerly mapped in CT as the Hebron Formation and in MA as the Paxton Formation. It conformably overlies the Oakdale Formation and structurally and conformably underlies the Brimfield Group. It is undivided in central MA; in northeast CT and adjacent MA it is divided into the Dudley and Southbridge Formations. Age is Late Proterozoic(?) based on the intrusion of 440 m.y. Hedgehog Hill gneiss into the overlying Brimfield Group and an age of 1188 m.y. for detrital zircons from the Paxton (Pease, 1989).
Cobble Mountain Formation - Thick-bedded (15 to 40 cm), nonrusty-weathering, silvery-gray, medium- to coarse-grained mica gneiss interlayered with nonrusty-weathering mica schist and minor amphibolite.
Hawley Formation(Middle Ordovician)at surface, covers 0.2 % of this area
Hawley Formation - Interbedded amphibolite, greenstone, feldspathic schist and granofels. Coarse plagioclase in some amphibolite near top; local coarse hornblende blades or sprays. Sparse coticule (Emerson, 1917, p. 43). As used here the Hawley includes amphibolite, sulfidic rusty schists, abundant coticules, silvery schists, quartzites and quartz conglomerates, and quartz, feldspar, biotite granulites. The quartzites and quartz conglomerates occur at two positions in rocks here assigned to the Hawley. Those occurring near the top have been mapped previously as Russell Mountain Formation or as Shaw Mountain Formation. The Hawley overlies the Ordovician Barnard Gneiss and underlies Silurian and Devonian "calciferous schists" that include the westernmost Goshen Formation in MA and Northfield Formation in southern VT, the central Waits River Formation and the eastern Gile Mountain Formation. Authors believe that the Goshen, Northfield, and Waits River are facies equivalents, while the Gile Mountain is slightly younger. Map symbol indicates that Hawley is Ordovician and Silurian. 40Ar/3Ar hornblende release spectrum date of 433+/-3 Ma obtained by Spear and Harrison (1989) (Trzcienski and others, 1992).
Monson Gneiss(Middle or Lower Ordovician?)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Monson Gneiss (may be equivalent to part of Waterford Group) - Interlayered light to dark, mostly medium to coarse-grained gneiss and amphibolite; gneiss composed of plagioclase, quartz, and biotite, with hornblende in some layers and microcline in others; traces of garnet, epidote, and magnetite.
White to gray and black-spotted muscovite-biotite granite and granodiorite - Intruded near or along thrust faults. Intrudes CAZh and Proterozoic Y gneisses.