Mica

A.I.duPont Students see geology of the Delaware Piedmont

Date

William "Sandy" Schenck lead a field trip through the Delaware Piedmont for the A.I. duPont High School Earth Science Class. The trip made use of the Wilmington-Western Railroad and everyone rode the railroad's "Doodle Bug." Activities included up close examinations of rock and mineral features and even "Panning for Garnets" at Brandywine Springs Park.

Lynch Heights Formation

Heterogeneous unit of light-gray to brown to light-yellowish brown, medium to fine sand with discontinuous beds of coarse sand, gravel, silt, fine to very fine sand, and organic-rich clayey silt to silty sand. Upper part of the unit commonly consists of fine, well-sorted sand. Small-scale cross-bedding within the sands is common. Some of the interbedded clayey silts and silty sands are burrowed. Beds of shell are rarely encountered. Sands are quartzose and slightly feldspathic, and typically micaceous where very fine to fine grained. Unit underlies a terrace parallel to the present Delaware Bay that has elevations between 50 and 30 feet. Interpreted to be a fluvial to estuarine unit of fluvial channel, tidal flat, tidal channel, beach, and bay deposits (Ramsey, 1997). Overall thickness ranges up to 50 feet.