THE GEOLOGY OF THE SYRACUSE QUADRANGLE IO, 



The waterlime is an argillaceous dolomite in which the clay is 

 intimately mixed through the carbonates in about the right pro- 

 portion to make a good quality of hydraulic cement when it is burnt 

 and ground. It was first used in large quantities about the year 

 1820 in the construction of the Erie canal and has been quarried 

 and burnt for cement in variable quantities from that time to the 

 present. The extent of the industry is indicated by the great num- 

 ber of quarries which are almost continuous along the outcrop across 

 the area. The largest quarries are in the vicinity of Manlius, Fay- 

 etteville, Jamesville and along the escarpment between Onondaga 

 valley and the Split Rock quarries. The industry has declined in 

 recent years owing to the rapid increase in the manufacture of the 

 Portland cement. 



The portion of the Manlius limestone underlying the waterlime 

 layers consists mostly of blue, in places nearly black, limestone in 

 layers of varying thickness. Mingled with these compact calcareous 

 layers are some drab colored finely straticulate layers of dolomite. 

 In some layers the straticulation is so fine as to be scarcely percep- 

 tible until intensified by weathering. 



The Manlius limestone is well exposed on the Syracuse quad- 

 rangle, forming an almost continuous outcrop across the quadrangle 

 from High Bridge on the east to the Split Rock quarries on the west. 

 It forms an important part, generally the middle portions, of the 

 limestone escarpment that marks the northern limits of the Alle- 

 ghany plateau. 



The waterlime is barren of fossils in this locality. Some of the 

 blue layers below the waterlime are very fossiliferous, the small 

 brachiopod Spirifer vanuxemi being especially abundant 

 near the base of the series. In the midst of the series Stromatopora 

 is abundant, in places one layer, and in some places two layers, 

 being composed entirely of this fossil. The Stromatopora of these 

 lower layers strongly resembles that of the beds overlying the water- 

 lime, but Hartnagel has found mingled with the Stromatopora in 

 the upper bed a number of fossils of Helderbergian or Devonic age. 

 Thus both the fossils and stratigraphy indicate that in this locality 

 there was no very great geographic change separating the Siluric 

 and Devonic periods. 



DEVONIC 



HELDERBERGIAN LIMESTONE 



Overlying the Manlius limestone and occupying the interval be- 

 tween it and the Oriskany sandstone is a deposit of blue limestone 

 over the greater part of this area that is correlated with the Helder- 



