DUNKARD FORMATION 141 



The Marietta interval is as variable as the rest, but at most localities it 

 contains sandstone and occasionally that rock predoniioates. A great 

 sandstone is nsually present at 40 to 50 feet below the Washiugtoii coal, 

 and it is sometimes continuous with the Uniontown sandstouD below. 

 The Washington coal seems to be persistent throughout the county, being 

 reported at many places by both White and Stevenson; it is 1 foot to 

 2 feet 9 inches thick and usually double. Eecords giving details above 

 the Washington are few, but they show that the red beds are as variable 

 as the rest; for in three wells, reds, 26, 35, and 50 feet are at 44, 100, 

 and 130 feet above the coal; but each is in only one well, its place in the 

 others being filled with sandstone.* 



Wood county, west from Eitchie and Pleasants, adjoins Washington 

 of Ohio. The Washington coal bed, thin and slaty, is in the Ohio river 

 at Parkersburg with one of the Marietta sandstones at 90 feet above 

 it. The persistent Nineveh limestone is in the hills, 3 or 4 miles east 

 from the river, where a well record shows a great sandstone, 119 feet 

 thick, at 236 feet below the limestone and 10 feet above a coal bed. This 

 direct measurement gives as interval between the limestone and the coal 

 bed, 365 feet, placing the coal at the Washington horizon and the sand- 

 stone in the Marietta interval. A great mass of red shale underlies the 

 Mneveh limestone; a bed 16 feet thick rests on the Marietta sandstone 

 and a thin bed is at 5 feet above the Washington. This coal bed rests 

 on 55 feet of red, with at 55 feet lower a great sandstone belonging 

 mostly to the Uniontown ; but the section is excessively variable. At 3 

 miles northeast the Marietta sandstone is wanting, and for 200 feet 

 above the coal one finds an alternation of red and other shales, with 

 the beds differing even in adjacent wells; thus one well shows two beds 

 of red, 100 and 40 feet, while another only a few rods away has 60 and 

 20 feet in the same interval. But it is sufficiently evident that red shales 

 are in greatly increased thickness, both above and below the Washington 

 coal bed. The Nineveh limestone is exposed in eastern Wood, at the 

 corner of Wood, Jackson, and Wirt counties, as a mass of limestone and 

 calcareous shale 30 feet thick. -j- 



There is practically no detailed information for counties south from 

 those already followed. Dunkard is certainly present in Jackson, Wirt, 

 Eoane, Calhoun, and Gilmer, and no doubt it crosses the Great Kanawha 

 river. Doctor White has recognized the Marietta sandstones in the 

 counties named, and the Washington coal bed has been opened at many 



♦ Geology of West Virginia, vol. 1, pp. 311, 313, 317; vol. la, pp. 406, 416, 431, 434, 

 435 ; vol. ii, p. 114. 



t Geology of West Virginia, vol. i, pp. 291, 294, 295, 296 ; vol. ii, p. 109. 

 XI — Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 18, 1906 



