THE MIDDLE AND UPPER DEVONIAN OF THE ROMNEY, 

 WEST VIRGINIA, REGION^ 



CHARLES S. PROSSER 

 Ohio State University 



CONTENTS 

 Introduction 

 Description of West Virginia Sections 



Cliffs near South Branch of the Potomac River 



Outcrops from Romney to Hanging Rock 



Hanging Rock 



Outcrops South and North of Springfield 



Outcrops Southeast of Romney 



Mill Creek Southwest of Romney 



Patterson Creek 



Note on the Correlation of the Maryland Helderberg Formation 



INTRODUCTION 



The name Romney shales, from "Romney in West Virginia," 

 was published by N. H. Darton in 1892 "for the basal series of 

 dark shales [in the Devonian]."^ The formation was briefly 

 described as follows: 



The basal members [of the Devonian] are fissile shales, in greater part 

 black or dark brown in color, containing occasional thin beds of sandstone and 



limestone. Their average thickness is about 600 feet The Devonian 



formations are not fossiliferous at many horizons in the region west of Staunton. 

 In the Romney shales the following species are Corniferous [misprint for con- 

 spicuous]: Discina lodensis, D. minuta, Orthis leucosia, Strophodonta demissa 

 Cyrtina hamiltonensis, Spirifera mucronaius, S. granulifera, and Leiorhynchus 

 limitaris. This is a Hamilton group fauna, but the stratigraphic range of 

 Hamilton group equivalents in the Romney shales is not apparent, and Hamil- 

 ton deposits probably extend some distance above.3 



' Published by permission of Dr. William Bullock Clark, state geologist of Mary- 

 land. 



^ American Geologist, X (July, 1892), 17, and the name first appears in the table 

 of formations on p. 13. 



3 Ihid., pp. 17, 18. 



