New York State Education Department 



New York State Museum 



John M. Clarke Director 

 Bulletin 99 



PALEONTOLOGY 15 



GEOLOGIC MAP 



OF THE 



BUFFALO QUADRANGLE 



BY 



D. D. LUTHER 



PREFACE 



The map herewith presented affords accurate data in regard to 

 the surface rocks and succession of strata at and in the immediate 

 neighborhood of the second city of the State in size and importance ; 

 over an area where the rocks yield and are eagerly exploited for 

 natural gas, natural cement and other industrial products. Stu- 

 dents of geology in Buffalo will find the map and its accompany- 

 ing text a detailed guide to the rock sections of the region and to 

 the scattered and often obscure outcrops of the formations. 



The Buffalo quadrangle embraces geologic formations which ex- 

 tend from the Upper Siluric well into the Upper Devonic. The 

 tracing of the boundaries of these formations here has been beset 

 with special difficulties arising from the essentially level character 

 of most of the region, the absence of creeks flowing across the 

 strike of the beds over much of the area and the presence of an all 

 obscuring mantle of glacial drift. The boundaries are therefore to 

 some degree constructional, but are believed to be as nearly correct 

 as can now be determined from data of every kind. 



In approaching this region from the east the Helderberg escarp- 

 ment traversing the State as a notable topographic feature here 

 becomes lessened and flattened out; again, the northern edge of 

 the Appalachian plateau which enters the southern part of the 



