THE GEOLOGY OF THE COASTAL PLAIN 

 FORMATIONS 



BY 



GEORGE BURBANK SHATTUCK 



Intkoductory. 



Special attention is given in the following chapters to the stratig- 

 raphy, structure and areal distribution of the various unconsolidated 

 deposits found within the borders of Cecil county. These deposits 

 are confined to the Coastal Plain except on its western border where 

 they lap up on to the eastern edge of the crystalline rocks as they 

 pass beneath the surface. The deposits of the Coastal Plain are 

 very much younger than the rocks composing the Piedmont Plateau 

 and the unconformity which separates them represents a great inter- 

 val of time. The geologic history of the Coastal Plain is a most com- 

 plex and interesting one and covers a period extending from the 

 Lower Cretaceous, or possibly Upper Jurassic, down to the present. 

 The sequence of deposits, however, is not a continuous one but is 

 interrupted frequently by unconformities when the region stood above 

 ocean-level and was subjected to the destructive processes of erosion. 



The various formations of the Coastal Plain in Cecil county in their 

 regular sequence of superposition are as follows: 



Age. Formation. Group. 



Pleistocene Talbot ] 



Wicomico V Columbia. 



Sunderland ) 



Neocene Lafayette 



Eocene A quia Pamunkey. 



Upper Cretaceous Monmouth 



Matawan 



Lower Cretaceous Raritan 



Patapsco }- Potomac. 



Jurassic ? Patuxent 



