Albee Formation (Ordovician)Albee Formation - Massive, gray, white-weathered quartzite and feldspathic quartzite interbedded with greenish-gray slate, phyllite, feldspthic phyllite and quartzose argillaceous phyllite. Micaceous quartzite, quartz-mica schist, mica schist and hornfels contining porphyroblasts of biotite, garnet, staurolite and sillimanite in the vicinity of granitic plutons. Soda-rhyolite tuff occurs locally. Micaceous quartzite characterized by thin, schistose "pinstripe" partings is common in many areas.
Cavendish Formation, Readsboro Member (Cambrian?)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).
Hoosac Formation, Plymouth Member (Cambrian)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).
Littleton Formation (Devonian)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.
Missisquoi Formation, Moretown Member (Ordovician)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.
Mount Holly Complex (Precambrian)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).
Pinney Hollow Formation, Ottauquechee, and Stowe Formations, Undifferentiated (Ordovician)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.
Waits River Formation (Devonian)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.