In Delaware, predominantly a pure, coarsely crystalline, blue-white dolomite marble interlayered with calc-schist. Major minerals in the marble include calcite and dolomite with phlogopite, diopside, olivine, and graphite. Major minerals in the calc-schist are calcite with phlogopite, microcline, diopside, tremolite, quartz, plagioclase, scapolite, and clinozoisite. Pegmatites and pure kaolin deposits and quartz occur locally.
Interlayered psammitic and pelitic gneiss with amphibolite. Psammitic gneiss is a medium- to fine-grained biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss with or without small garnets. Contacts with pelitic gneiss are gradational. Pelitic gneiss is medium- to coarse-grained garnet-sillimanite-biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss. Unit has a streaked or flasered appearance owing to the segregation of garnet-sillimanite-biotite stringers that surround lenses of quartz and feldspar. Throughout, layers of fine to medium-grained amphibolite composed of plagioclase and hornblende, several inches to 30 feet thick or as large massive bodies, are in sharp contact with the psammitic and pelitic gneisses. An attempt has been made to show some of the amphibolites mappable at the scale of the map. Granitic pegmatite is ubiquitous and occurs at all scales. Pyroxene bearing quartzite with garnet occurs locally near the contact with the Wilmington Complex. An ultramafic lens composed of cumulus layers of serpentinized peridotite, metapyroxenite, and metagabbro occurs near Hoopes Reservoir. The ultramafic lens may be correlative with the Baltimore Mafic Complex.
Thinly interlayered, fine- to medium-grained hornblende-plagioclase amphibolite, biotite gneiss, and felsic gneiss, possibly metavolcanic. Felsic gneisses contain quartz and plagioclase with or without microcline with minor pyroxene and/or hornblende and/or biotite. Metamorphic grade in this unit decreases from granulite facies in the northeast to amphibolite facies toward the southwest. Correlated with the Big Elk Member of the James Run Formation in Cecil County, Maryland.
Predominantly fine- to coarse-grained amphibolites and quartz amphibolites with minor felsic rocks, probably metavolcanic. Major minerals are amphibole and plagioclase with or without pyroxene and/or quartz. Amphibole may be hornblende, cummingtonite, gedrite, and/or anthophyllite. Halos of plagioclase and quartz around porphyroblasts of magnetite, orthopyroxene, and garnet are common features.
Coarse-grained, foliated granodioritic gneiss. Major minerals are biotite, microcline, plagioclase, and quartz. Includes thin layers of fine-grained foliated amphibolite plus large pegmatites.
Coarse-grained, foliated tonalite gneiss. Major minerals are biotite, hornblende, plagioclase, and quartz. Includes mafic enclaves or layers composed of subequal amounts of hornblende and plagioclase. Also includes a coarse-grained granitic lithology composed of biotite, microcline, plagioclase, and quartz.
Fine-grained mafic and fine- to medium-grained felsic gneisses interlayered on the decimeter scale. Layers are laterally continuous, but mafic layers commonly show boudinage. Felsic layers are composed of quartz and plagioclase with 10 modal percent pyroxene. Mafic layers contain subequal amounts of plagioclase, pyroxene, and hornblende. Penetrative deformation and granulite facies metamorphism have obscured igneous fabrics and contact relationships.
Medium to coarse grained granulites and gneisses composed of plagioclase, quartz, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, brown-green hornblende, magnetite, and ilmenite. Mafic minerals vary from 5-30 modal percent. A lineation due to a preferred orientation of quartz and mafic minerals is obvious on weathered surfaces. Unit contains thin, discontinuous fine-grained mafic layers.
Medium- to coarse-grained granitic rocks containing primary orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene; includes quartz norites, quartz monzonorites, opdalites, and charnockites. Feldspar phenocrysts common. Mafic enclaves locally abundant in proximity to gabbronorites.
Black to very dark green, coarse- to very coarse-grained, uralitized olivine-hypersthene gabbronorite and pyroxenite with subophitic textures. Primary minerals are calcic plagioclase, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, and olivine. Amphibole is secondary, a pale blue-green actinolite. Olivine, when present, is surrounded by coronas similar to those in the Bringhurst Gabbro. The gabbronorite is deeply weathered leaving a layer of iron oxides, limonite, goethite, and hematite, mixed with ferruginous jasper. The jasper contains thin seams lined with drusy quartz. Contacts with the Christianstead Gneiss are covered with sediments of the Coastal Plain.