BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAE SCIENCES 19 



Marcellus Shale. 



Lying above the Onondaga limestone is amass of black shale 

 which has been given the name of Marcellus shale, from Marcellus, 

 Onondaga county. This name was originally given by Vanuxem 

 to the black shales, now known as the Marcellus and Cardiff and 

 the intercalated limestone bed, now known as the Stafford. The 

 name Marcellus is now applied only to the lowest member of the 

 old Marcellus. It extends eastward to Schoharie county and 

 westward it probably correlates with the Olentangy shale of Ohio. 



The Marcellus shale thus limited is a dense, black, slaty 

 shale, highly bituminous and pyritiferous. It contains numerous 

 concretions, often of large size, and occasional thin limestone 

 layers. Eithologically it resembles the later Middlesex and 

 Rhinestreet shales but it differs radically from them in fossil 

 content. Its thickness is given as 49.6 feet in the well of the 

 L,ackawanna Steel Company. 



Few outcrops of the Marcellus shale occur in Erie county. 

 Exposures in Cayuga creek show only a few feet in two layers 

 and these layers are separated by 15 feet vertical distance in 

 which the shale is not exposed. 



The following description of the beds immediately underlying 

 the Stafford limestone is given by Miss Wood : 



Stafford limestone 



E. 12 inches gray calcareous shale with Orthis subula- 

 tum, Chonetes scitulus. 



D. 12 inches gray, fissile shale with Eiorhynchus 

 limitare, Strophotnena truncata. 



C. 6 inches calcareous, dark gray shale with nuculites. 



B. 4 inches extremely fissile gray shale, with L,unuli- 

 cardium fragile, Chonetes mucronatus, Strophalosia 

 truncata. 



A. 4 inches gray calcareous shale breaking irregularly, 

 with Styliolina fissurella. 



Fifteen feet lower in the section there is abed of dense black 

 shale with iron pyrites and concretions. This is overlain by a 

 bed of limestone a foot thick. 



