By: magic-gigapans
Image: Callan Bentley, Mid-Atlantic Geo-Image Collection
License: Creative Commons Non Commercial ⧉

Uploaded: 8 May 2020
Last Updated: 26 May 2020

890 megapixels
37,444 x 23,780 pixels
124.8 in X 79.3 in at 300dpi
299 pixels per inch

This outcrop of Mahantango Formation is a black shale with prominent cleavage (much more discernible than bedding at this site) and numerous hematite-highlighted trace fossils. These rocks were laid down as mud during the Devonian period of geologic time, during which time some kind of critter crawled through the mud. Later, Alleghanian deformation imprinted a cleavage to the rocks (as the Massanutten Synclinorium was folding up). The outcrop is a road cut, immediately west of the Fort Valley Road (route 678) just south of the George Washington National Forest's Passage Creek Day Use Area. Can you find the pencil w/cm markings on its side? It serves as a sense of scale. A slightly differently-lighted GigaPan of this same outcrop appears at https://viewer.gigamacro.com/view/0mKd0YO1ZCRvgZxB