REPORT OF THE STATE PALEONTOLOGIST 11)02 975 



a characteristic feature of the weathered blocks in the Olean 

 region. 



Its massive conglomeritic character is best developed in the 

 Salamanca region and may be well seen up Limestone and Irish 

 brooks, along Red House creek, at Salamanca rock city where 

 it weathers into great blocks, and at numerous other places. 



In thickness, coarseness and massiveness it is also variable 

 though not as markedly or abruptly so as the Wolf creek. In 

 its more massive phase it is often strongly cross bedded and in 

 places is separated into two benches with a shale parting be- 

 tween. The pebbles are mostly of vein quartz and the great 

 majority of them are distinctly flattened like those of the Wolf 

 creek and, like the latter also, they include an occasional one 

 of red jasper. Even when coarsest and most massive the peb- 

 bles do not appear as prominent or form as large a proportion of 

 the mass as they do in the Olean conglomerate. The bulk of 

 the rock consists of a coarse, gritty sand. The average size of , 

 the pebbles is small and they are usually distributed through 

 the mass of the rock not uniformly but in thin streaks along 

 the planes of the cross bedding. 



The difference between the flatness of the pebbles of the 

 Wolf creek, the Salamanca, the) Kilbuck and the two thin con- 

 glomerates just below the Olean and the roundness of the peb- 

 bles of the Olean itself was first noticed by Carll 1 whose ex- 

 planation of their flatness as due to beach action would seem 

 to be correct. He regarded older shore deposits lying to 

 the north as the source of the pebbly materials. A& the 

 presence of the occasional jasper pebbles among the flattened 

 quartz ones in all of the conglomerate beds in the region 

 below the Olean or round pebble conglomerate gives suffi- 

 cient gounds for concluding, it is believed by the writer that 

 the coarse materials of these lower, or flat pebble conglom- 

 erates, were derived from the Lake Superior region and were 

 transported eastward along the shore by the waves and long 

 shore currents of the Devonic and Carbonic seas, the flat- 

 tened or discoid form so characteristic of the pebbles of these 

 lower conglomerates being produced by their to and fro mo- 

 tion along the beach during this long eastward journey. 



Carll, J. F. Geol. Sur. Pa. Rep't I 3 , p. 60, 61; I 4 , p. 190-92 



