CHAPTER VI. 
DETAILED GEOLOGY OF THE CLAY'8VILLE QUADRANGLE. 
INDEPENDENCE TOWNSHIP, WASHINGTON COUNTY. 
1 lie lowest depression in the structure of the rocks in Independence 
Township is about 1 mile north of the junction of Dutch Fork and 
Buffalo Creek. This point is approximately the center of a low, 
spoon-shaped basin in the bottom of the Burgettstown syncline. 
From this point the rocks rise very steeply to the northwest, a little 
less so to the southeast, and still less to the northeast and southwest 
along the bottom of the synclinal trough, the rise being smallest to 
the southwest. The beds exposed in this township are the lower por¬ 
tion of the Greene, all of the Washington, and the upper part of the 
Monongahela formation. 
Upper and Middle Washington limestones and J oily town coal .— 
The Upper Washington limestone is found in outcrop near the tops 
of the highest hills from West Middletown along the pike toward 
Independence, the last outcrop noted being on the road to the south 
about one-half mile , from Manchester schoolhouse. Westward the 
steep rise of the rocks brings the horizon of this bed above the hills, 
but to the south along the ridge road between Haynon and Sugar- 
camp runs the dip is sufficient to keep the limestone under cover to 
the center of the structural basin west of Acheson. The Middle 
Washington limestone has an unusual thickness in this township. 
It is exposed over about the same territory as that given above for 
the Upper Washington, but on account of its position lower in the 
series it is not so badly eroded as the upper J>ed. This limestone is 
easily identified by a heavy yellow bed near its center from which 
all measurements of interval have been taken. The smaller layers 
at the to]) are more easily disintegrated and rarely show distinctty 
in outcrop. The Jollytown coal appears to be present wherever the 
Middle Washington limestone occurs, but it is thin, and being em¬ 
bedded in reddish shale is easily overlooked. The interval between 
this coal and the Middle Washington limestone does not remain con¬ 
stant, and hence the former is of little value as a geologic marker. 
Washington coal. —This coal is widespread in outcrop. On the 
points of the hills north of Buffalo Creek it is a little more than 100 
feet above the stream. In all the small tributaries coming into the 
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