Cavendish Formation, Dolomite and Marble - Buff dolomite; minor white to pink calcite marble; actinolitic and diopsidic marbles and beds of actinolite diopside granulite common in Chester dome. The Cavendish Formation is reinstated and considered part of the Mount Holly Complex in VT. Usage follows Thompson (1950), but is extended to include some rocks on Star Hill, including inner and outer cover rocks assigned by Downie (1982) to Hoosac and Pinney Hollow Formations. Formation is divided into four map units: calc-silicate rock and gneiss, marble, feldspathic schist or granofels, and the Gassetts Schist Member. The Cavendish correlates with the Wilcox Formation of the Mount Holly Complex in the Green Mountain massif, and therefore, is of Middle Proterozoic age (Ratcliffe, in press).
Gile Mountain Formation - Gray quartz-muscovite phyllite or schist, interbedded and intergradational with gray micaceous quartzite (graywacke northeast of Nulhegan River), calcareous mica schist, and, locally, quartzose and micaceous crystalline limestone like that of the Waits River formation. The phyllite and schist commonly contain porphyroblasts of biotite, garnet, or staurolite, and locally kyanite, andalusite, or sillimanite. Used as Early Devonian Gile Mountain Formation. Generally consists of gray to tan metawacke and schist or phyllite, gradational into its Meetinghouse Slate Member, but much more thickly bedded and less pelitic. Contains minor metavolcanic lentils. Unnamed metavolcanic member is possibly equivalent to Putney Volcanics of southeastern VT. Separately mapped interbedded gray slate or phyllite and brown-weathering calcite-ankerite metasiltstone, and minor marble and quartzite, resembles Waits River Formation of VT. Meetinghouse Slate Member consists of gray to black phyllite and silty metasandstone turbidite. Report includes geologic map, cross sections, correlation chart, and four 1:500,000-scale derivative maps (Lyons and others, 1997).
Cavendish Formation, Bull Hill Gneiss - Quartz-plagioclase-microcline-biotite gneiss characterized in many areas by augen of microcline as much as 2 inches long; fine- to medium-grained quartz-plagioclase-biotite or biotite-muscovite gneiss. Cardinal Brook Intrusive Suite is here named in the cores of the Chester-Athens dome and Rayponda-Sadawga dome in the eastern and southern Green Mountains, VT, and the northern part of the Berkshire massif, MA. Includes the Stamford Granite of Hitchcock (1861), the Somerset Reservoir Granite (new name), the Harriman Reservoir Granite (new name), and the Bull Hill Gneiss of Richardson (1929-30). Because of uncertainty regarding the geologic position of the Bull Hill, it is restricted to the Chester and Athens domes and the original definition of Richardson is retained. Rocks mapped as Bull Hill in the Jamaica area are assigned to the Somerset Reservoir Granite and those in the Rayponda-Sadawga dome are assigned to the Harriman Reservoir Granite. Structural position is unclear. U-Pb zircon age is Middle Proterozoic (960-950 Ma). . [GNU Staff note--This report mistakenly uses the phrasing "Bull Hill Gneiss of Richardson (1929-30)" which would normally imply that the unit has not been adopted for use by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) because of inadequate definition by Richardson or successive workers in the area. However, in this report, the phrasing simply means that Richardson's definition and use are preferred over the usage on the VT State Geologic Map of Doll and others (1961) and that the unit meets the requirements for formal usage by the USGS.] (Ratcliffe, 1991).
Pinney Hollow Formation, Chester Amphibolite Member - Thin-layered, ligniform amphibolite and hornblende schist; includes actinolitic greenstone and greenstone north of Windham. (Southern and Central Vermont).
Tyson Formation(Cambrian)at surface, covers 1 % of this area
Tyson Formation - Feldspathic quartz-mica schist containing biotite, chlorite, and carbonate; many beds contain pebbles of quartz and feldspar; cobble or boulder conglomerate commonly at base; thin beds of quartzite, carbonaceous phyllite, and schistose dolomite in upper part, overlain at top by massive buff dolomite as much as 30 ft thick. (Southern and Central Vermont). The Tyson Formation contains grits and conglomerates at its base that unconformably overlie basement. The conglomerates and grits are as much as 150 m thick and contain lenses of dolomitic quartzite and feldspathic grit. Unit also contains black carbonaceous phyllite and interbedded dolostone as much as 100 m thick, followed by beige to tan weathering beds of dolostone that increase in abundance toward the top of the unit and pass into punky weathering dolomitic and feldspathic quartzite at the top. From a point near the southwest corner of the Andover quad, the rocks of the Tyson Formation are laterally replaced by albitic schists and granofels of the Hoosac Formation to the south. Therefore, Tyson laterally replaces the Hoosac from south to north along the eastern margin of the Green Mountain massif. The Tyson Formation is of Late Proterozoic(?) and Early Cambrian age (Ratcliffe, 1994).
Stowe Formation(Cambrian-Ordovician)at surface, covers 4 % of this area
Stowe Formation - Quartz-sericite (muscovite-paragonite)-chlorite phyllite and schist; porphyroblasts of albite, garnet, chloritoid, or kyanite common locally; includes phyllitic graywacke north of Lamoille River. Schist contains abundant segregations of granular white quartz. The Stowe Formation in the study are contains two unnamed members: a silvery green schist and a greenstone. The schist is a fine-grained, silvery to dark green quartz-muscovite-albite-chlorite schist. It is in fault contact with the black phyllite of the Ottauquechee Formation. The greenstone is a homogenous, fine-grained, light green actinolite-albite-epidote-calcite-chlorite schist. Large outcrops of the resistant greenstone are common. Age according to map symbols is Proterozoic and Cambrian. Unit is correlated with the Rowe Schist (of Zen, 1983). [Rowe Schist on 1983 MA map is Cambrian and Ordovician. No explanation here for older age.] (Walsh, 1992).
Ammonoosuc Volcanics - Fine-grained chloritic and biotitic gneiss and greenstone in areas north of Bellows Falls; biotite gneiss and amphibolite south of Bellows Falls. (Southeastern Vermont).
Waits River formation, Standing Pond Volcanic Member - Amphibolite, garnet amphibolite, coarse garnet schist with fasciculitic hornblende, and hornblende maculite; contains pillow lavas near St. Johnsbury and passes eastward into actinolitic greenstone and greenstone south of Windsor.
Gile Mountain Formation, undivided - Gray to tan metawacke and schist or phyllite; gradational into Meetinghouse Slate Member but more thickly bedded and less pelitic than the member. Includes minor metavolcanic lentils.
Shaw Mountain Formation - Quartzite, quartz conglomerate, cummingtonite schist, amphibolite, and quartz-sericite schist with porphyroblasts of biotite and garnet.
Littleton Formation - Gray slate and phyllite containing interbeds of gray schistose quartzite 1/4 inch to 6 inches thick. West of Guildhall are lustrous, light to dark gray biotite-garnet phyllite and schist, some slate, and subordinate quartzite and impure quartzite. South of Bellows Falls gray phyllite passes eastward into gray mica schist containing porphyroblasts of biotite, garnet, and staurolite.
Littleton Formation undivided - Gray metapelite and metawacke and subordinate metavolcanic rocks; generally, but not everywhere, conformable with underlying Fitch or Madrid Formations. Fossiliferous in western New Hampshire.
Gile Mountain Formation, Meetinghouse Slate Member - Chiefly gray slate or phyllite characterized by beds of gray schistose quartzite 1/8 inch to 3 inches thick. Gile Mountain Formation and its Meetinghouse Slate Member were previously considered to be Early Devonian based on Emsian plant fossils from Compton Formation of QUE (Hueber and others, 1990; Hatch, 1991). Age assignment here changed to Early Devonian(?) because recent mapping indicates that Gile Mountain and Compton are not coextensive across VT-QUE border as formerly believed by Doll and others (1961, State map) and St. Julien and Slivitsky (1987). Instead, the formations are separated by Ironbound Mountain Formation. Ironbound Mountain Formation is conformably overlain by Compton, but it is not yet known whether Ironbound Mountain is overlain or underlain by Gile Mountain; this is shown by queried Ironbound Mountain-Gile Mountain contact in area of Averill 7.5-min quad, VT. Correlation of Gile Mountain and Compton is justified only if Gile Mountain in this area conclusively is shown to be underlain by Ironbound Mountain; otherwise, Gile Mountain (with possible exception of its Meetinghouse Slate Member) would be coeval with Silurian Frontenac Formation. Hatch (1988) proposed that Meetinghouse represents upper part of Gile Mountain on basis of graded bedding seen south of map area. This relationship is not proven, however, because Gile Mountain-Meetinghouse contact is difficult to define and graded beds are not always easily interpreted. On this map, Meetinghouse is tentatively shown to occur below main body of Gile Mountain on basis of remarkable similarity between it and Ironbound Mountain Formation. This relationship easily explains highly pelitic character of the Meetinghouse with upward-coarsening character of Lower Devonian sequences elsewhere in map area. Meetinghouse Slate Member includes volcanic facies (Moench and others, 1995).
Fitch Formation(Silurian)at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Fitch Formation - Quartz-plagioclase-biotite granulite; actinolite-diopside granulite; impure limestone and dolomite; mica schist; the carbonate-rich beds are typically an inch or two thick and segmented so as to give the weathered outcrop a characteristic pitted appearance. (Southeastern Vermont).
Hoosac Formation, Plymouth Member - Quartzite, schistose quartzite, dolomitic quartzite; carbonaceous phyllite; buff to dark gray dolomite with partings locally of carbonaceous phyllite; quartz-sericite-chlorite-albite schist; carbonaceous albite schist. (Southern and Central Vermont). Revised the Plymouth Member of the Hoosac Formation of Doll and others (1961) to the Plymouth Formation. Consists of a series of feldspathic and dolomitic quartzites, dolostones and black phyllites that overlie probable Middle Proterozoic gneisses. The Plymouth Formation can be divided into several informal members. The lower contact of the formation is below a sequence of dolomitic quartzites or thin bedded quartzite. Dark laminated silty phyllites laterally replace the more feldspathic quartzites and dark-gray schistose quartzites, massive vitreous quartzites, and dolomitic quartzites pass upward to the east into well bedded cream-weathered light-gray dolostone breccia; these lithologies make up the dolostone member of the Plymouth Formation. The upper member of the Plymouth Formation is a black graphitic and siliceous phyllite that contains 1 to 3 cm thick layers of dark-gray ferruginous quartzite, dolomitic quartzite, and ribbony beds of dolostone. The upper contact of the Plymouth Formation is placed at the first occurrence of light-silvery-green magnetite-muscovite-quartz knotted phyllites of the Pinney Hollow Formation (Ratcliffe, 1994).
Mount Holly Complex, quartzite and schist - Quartzite, locally in massive beds as much as 30 ft thick, micaceous quartzite, and quartz-mica schist that commonly contains garnet or pseudomorphs (largely chlorite) after garnet; schists are locally rusty weathered and contain conspicuous flakes of graphite; also includes amphibolite and minor hornblende gneiss, biotite gneiss, and pegmatite.
Waits River Formation - Gray quartzose and micaceous crystalline limestone weathered to distinctive brown earthy crust; interbedded and intergradational with gray quartz-muscovite phyllite or schist. Where more metamorphosed the limestones contain actinolite, hornblende, zoisite, diopside, wollastonite, and garnet, and the phyllite and schist, biotite, garnet, and locally andalusite, kyanite or sillimanite.
Pinney Hollow Formation - Pale green quartz-sericite (muscovite-paragonite)-chlorite phyllite and schist with abundant magnetite, chloritoid phyllite and schist, quartz-sericite-albite-chlorite schist, and rare beds of carbonaceous and schistose quartzite; garnet porphyroblasts common south of Ottauquechee River. (Southern and Central Vermont).
Ottauquechee Formation, Greenstone and Amphibolite. The Ottauquechee contains two major units: A black phyllite and the Thatcher Brook Member. The black phyllite contains a previously unreported sub-unit of gray carbonate schist. The Thatcher Brook Member (named in an abstract by Armstrong and others, 1988) is a carbonaceous albitic schist with greenstones and ultramafics. These rocks have previously been included in the Ottauquechee but have never been differentiated from the black phyllite. Member is in fault contact with the silvery green schist of the Pinney Hollow Formation to the west. Age is Cambrian (Ratcliff, in press).
Northfield Formation - Dark gray to black quartz-sericite slate or phyllite with fairly widely-spaced interbeds a few inches thick of siltstone and silty crystalline limestone like that of the Waits River Formation; calcareous slate north of Lamoille River; phyllite passes into gray quartz-sericite schist containing abundant porphyroblasts of biotite and garnet in southern Vermont.
Ottauquechee Formation - Black carbonaceous phyllite or schist containing interbeds of massive quartzite commonly criss-crossed by veins of white quartz; quartzite is dark gray and carbonaceous, light gray, or white; also includes light green quartz-sericite-chlorite phyllite or schist and sercitic quartzite; beds of phyllitic graywacke and feldspar granule conglomerate are north of Lamoille River. Schist contains abundant porphyroblasts of garnet and biotite from Ludlow south. The Ottauquechee contains two major units: A black phyllite and the Thatcher Brook Member. The black phyllite contains a previously unreported sub-unit of gray carbonate schist. The Thatcher Brook Member (named in an abstract by Armstrong and others, 1988) is a carbonaceous albitic schist with greenstones and ultramafics. These rocks have previously been included in the Ottauquechee but have never been differentiated from the black phyllite. Member is in fault contact with the silvery green schist of the Pinney Hollow Formation to the west. Age is Cambrian (Ratcliff, in press).
Mount Holly Complex - Mainly fine- to medium-grained biotitic gneiss, locally muscovitic, and in western areas chloritic; massive and granitoid in some localities, fine-grained or schistose and compositionally layered in others; also abundant amphibolite and hornblende gneiss, and minor beds of mica schist, quartzite, and calc-silicate granulite; includes numerous small bodies of pegmatite and gneissoid granitic rock. Includes a suite of metatonalites, metatrondhjemite, and possible metadacite with chemical characteristics of a calc-alkaline volcanic-plutonic suite. Mappable units are College Hill Granite Gneiss and 10 unnamed subdivisions including several varieties of gneiss as well as schist, amphibolite, and quartzite. U-Pb zircon upper intercept ages of 1.35 to 1.30 Ga have been determined and interpreted as age of crystallization (Ratcliffe and others, unpub. data). Cores of abraded zircon obtained from College Hill Granite Gneiss of Mount Holly Complex have a U-Pb upper intercept age of 1245 +/-14 Ma, interpreted as crystallization age for that granite (Aleinikoff and others, 1990). Dust collected by abrasion of zircons, thought to represent migmatitic overgrowth, has a Pb-Pb age of approx 1100 Ma. These data suggest that College Hill Granite Gneiss was intruded at 1245 Ma and migmatized at 1100 Ma. On north and south slopes of College Hill, College Hill Granite Gneiss grades outward into migmatitic biotite granite gneiss of Mount Holly Complex. College Hill is discordant to contacts and folds in paragneiss units of Mount Holly Complex. Dacitic metavolcanics are found within Washington Gneiss of Berkshire massif of MA (Ratcliffe and Zartman, 1968). They are interbedded with thick succession of rusty-weathering, quartz-pebble gneisses, calc-silicate rocks and garnet-sillimanite schist similar to, but much thicker than, the rusty-weathering gneiss and schist unit of Mount Holly Complex exposed in Green Mountains of VT. It is possible that the metadacitic and metatrondhjemitic suite of VT constitutes a lateral, south-to-north facies of the Washington Gneiss of MA (Ratcliffe, in press).
Underhill Formation, Battell Member - Carbonaceous sericite-quartz-albite-chlorite schist and schistose quartzite, also carbonaceous and noncarbonaceous limestone; quartz-sericite-chlorite-albite schist. (Northern and Central Vermont). The Battell is raised to Formation rank by T.R. Armstrong (in press) [not in bibliography] to describe graphitic schists with carbonates that depositionally overlie the Monastery Formation in the Granville-Hancock area of central VT. The name Battell Formation is tentatively assigned in this report to a distinct group of graphitic rocks with limited occurrence in the study area. The basal portion of the Battell is assigned by Armstrong to the White River Member (new name) and following that nomenclature, the White River is the only part of the Battell seen in the Fayston-Buels Gore area. The White River appears to be in fault contact with the Underhill Formation along the eastern boundary of the Underhill in Buels Gore. The member also appears to be in depositional contact with the Monastery Formation at all observed locations and occurs as small bodies within the schists of the Monastery (Walsh, 1992).
Clough Quartzite (Lower Silurian (upper Llandoverian))at surface, covers < 0.1 % of this area
Clough Quartzite - Orthoquartzite, quartz metaconglomerate, muscovite schist, minor polymictic metaconglomerate. Disconformable below Fitch Formation and unconformable on Ordovician formations. Equivalent, in part, to member C of Rangeley Formation of Maine. Fossiliferous.
Mount Holly Complex, calcite and dolomite marbles - locally coarse grained; commonly contain phlogopite, actinolite, and diopside, and are interbedded with medium- to coarse-grained calc-silicate granulite; includes minor amounts of other types of Precambrian rock.
Hoosac Formation - Quartz-sericite-albite-biotite-chlorite schist characterized by albite porphyroblasts - biotite and garnet porphyroblasts common southward; locally carbonaceous. (Southern and Central Vermont). First revision is restriction of Tyson Formation and its replacement by Hoosac Formation in this quad. Cover rocks overlying basement of West River antiformal sheath fold (in hanging-wall of Ball Mountain thrust) consist of albitic schist locally containing pods of white dolomite and discontinuous basal beds of vitreous quartzite and interbedded dolomite as much as 15 m thick. These rocks were previously mapped as Tyson Formation by Doll and others (1961, State geologic map) and Karabinos (1984) and are now mapped as Hoosac Formation in this quad because of the presence of quartzite and dolomite locally contained within rusty albitic schist and granofels rocks typical of Hoosac. Similarly, cover rocks of Jamaica antiformal sheath fold consist of a 10-m-thick basal and quite continuous belt of dolomite marble that contains thin beds of vitreous quartzite. This unit was also mapped as Tyson by Doll and others (1961) and by Karabinos (1984) and is now mapped as Hoosac. Second revision is that Turkey Mountain Member is formalized as a member of Hoosac Formation to include all metabasalts within the formation. Exposed for a distance of 3 km northwest of Townshend. Consists of a collection of massive black amphibolite layers, 1 to 2 m thick, interlayered with epidotitic and quartz-rich, laminated greenstones. Total thickness of interbedded amphibolite and associated metasedimentary rock on Turkey Mountain is as much as 200 m. Termination of Turkey Mountain Member northward appears to result from thinning to the north although fault truncation along its lower contact cannot be ruled out. To the south, Turkey Mountain Member also appears to thin by interbedding with enclosing metasedimentary rocks, and pinches out north of Townshend. Where several layers in a limited region can be mapped separately, they are each referred to informally by use of subscripts in the letter symbol; this, however, does not imply correlation of numbered layers between different areas of the map (Ratcliffe, in press).
Interbedded gray slate or phyllite and brown-weathering calcite-ankerite metasiltstone - Contains minor marble and quartzite. Resembles Waits River Formation in Vermont.
Orfordville Formation, Post Pond Volcanics - Greenstone, green chloritic schist interbedded with schistose felsite, quartz-feldspar-sericite schist; fine-grained chloritic, biotitic gneiss, all west of Ammonoosuc fault; mainly amphibolite east of the Ammonoosuc fault.
Missisquoi Formation, Moretown Member - Quartzite and quartz-plagioclase granulite, in layers 1/8 to several inches thick, separated by "pinstripe" partings that contain muscovite, chlorite, epidote, biotite, and locally garnet; also greenish quartz-sericite-chlorite phyllite and schist, and minor carbonaceous phyllite. Schist and phyllite commonly contain biotite and garnet porphyroblasts in southern Vermont.
Missisquoi Formation, Whetstone Hill Member - Carbonaceous black to light gray phyllite and schist containing porphyroblasts of biotite and garnet; beds of gray micaceous quartzite, fine-grained biotite gneiss and amphibolite.
Underhill Formation - Silvery, gray-green, quartz-sericite-albite-chlorite-biotite schist, containing abundant lenticular segregations of granular white quartz; locally quartz-sercite-albite-chlorite phyllite; porphyroblasts of albite, garnet, and magnetite are common and locally very abundant in gneissic facies in axial anticlines of the Green Mountain anticlinorium . (Northern and Central Vermont). In study area consists mainly of greenish quartz-chlorite-sericite phyllites lying stratigraphically between Pinnacle and Cheshire Formations, where author would place rocks of type locality within Underhill facies of Pinnacle Formation, for they are clearly stratigraphically equivalent to rocks of Pinnacle Formation in Enosburg area, being below an excellent horizon marker, the Whitebrook dolomite and slate. However, Underhill facies of the Pinnacle and phyllites of Underhill Formation are practically indistinguishable in the field, and it is unavoidable, wherever dividing White Brook dolomite and slate are absent, to map all rocks of Underhill facies as one unit. In western part of outcrop belt, Underhill rocks are well defined between White Brook Dolomite or coarse Pinnacle graywacke below and Cheshire Formation above. Rocks in this clearly defined area are here recognized as Fairfield Pond Member. As mapped, the Underhill includes Fairfield Pond Member, Bakersfield Greenstone, Peaked Mountain Greenstone, White Brook Member, Jay Peak Member, and West Sutton Slate Member. Eastern facies of Underhill is named Bonsecours facies (Dennis, 1964).
Pinney Hollow Formation, Ottauquechee, and Stowe Formations, Undifferentiated - Includes quartz-muscovite-garnet-chlorite-biotite schist, rusty carbonaceous schist, amphibolite, and schistose quartzite. Schist locally contains porphyroblasts of staurolite and kyanite. On flanks of Chester and Athens domes.
Cavendish Formation, Readsboro Member - Quartz-muscovite schist containing biotite or chlorite and characterized by conspicuous porphyroblasts of sodic plagioclase; less commonly quartz-muscovite-paragonite schist containing chlorite, garnet, or chloritoid, or, in Chester dome, quartz-muscovite-paragonite schist containing garnet, staurolite, and locally kyanite (Gassetts schist). The Cavendish Formation is reinstated and considered part of the Mount Holly Complex in VT. Usage follows Thompson (1950), but is extended to include some rocks on Star Hill, including inner and outer cover rocks assigned by Downie (1982) to Hoosac and Pinney Hollow Formations. Formation is divided into four map units: calc-silicate rock and gneiss, marble, feldspathic schist or granofels, and the Gassetts Schist Member. The Cavendish correlates with the Wilcox Formation of the Mount Holly Complex in the Green Mountain massif, and therefore, is of Middle Proterozoic age (Ratcliffe, in press).
Partridge Formation, undivided - Black, rusty-weathering sulfidic-graphitic slate or schist and sparse to abundant metagraywacke. Lies stratigraphically between upper and lower parts of the Ammonoosuc Volcanics.