THE RIPPLES OF THE BEDFORD AND BEREA FORMA- 

 TIONS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN OHIO, 

 WITH NOTES ON THE PALEOGEOGRAPHY 

 OF THAT EPOCH 1 



JESSE E. HYDE 

 Columbia University 



THE BEDFORD AND BEREA FORMATIONS 



The Bedford and Berea formations are respectively the lowest 

 and second lowest members of the Waverly series of Ohio. They 

 were formed either at the close of the Devonian or at the beginning 

 of the Mississippian period. They can be traced continuously 

 across the state along the outcrop, from the Pennsylvania line 

 on the northeast to the Ohio River on the south and over broad 

 areas under cover to the eastward. The Bedford is almost entirely 

 a shale formation usually about ioo feet thick; the Berea is a 

 sandstone roughly from 20 to 150 feet thick. 



In northern Ohio, the Bedford is largely an argillaceous shale 

 with sandstones present locally, the Berea a coarse, feldspathic 

 sandstone; the two are separated by an erosion plane. 2 In south- 

 ern Ohio the Bedford consists of interbedded sandstones and shales, 

 the former sometimes greatly in excess, the Berea of similar sand- 

 stones with limited quantities of shale. The sandstones in both 

 are fine grained and of exactly the same type while between the 

 two there is a transition zone. It is now becoming evident that 

 the geological history of these beds has been quite different on 

 opposite sides of the state, although the relation of the succession 

 in one area to that in the other is not yet known. The Berea of 

 southern Ohio is only a phase of the Bedford of the same region, 

 while that of northern Ohio is wholly distinct from the Bedford 

 and probably from the southern Ohio Berea. However, as a 

 sandstone formation, it is continuous across the state. 



1 Published by permission of the State Geologist of Ohio. 



2 Charles S. Prosser, manuscript. 



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