Soil Survey of Lincoln County, West Virginia - Soil Data Mart - US ...

Soil Survey of Lincoln County, West Virginia
Sand and gravel are dredged from the bed of the Guyandotte River and are used
for general construction purposes, but deleterious amounts of coal and weathered
clasts hinder their use as high-grade concrete aggregate.
Geology
Figure 2.—Coal mining in the southern part of Lincoln County.
All of the exposed rock in Lincoln County is of the Pennsylvanian period of the
Paleozoic era. These rocks are sedimentary in origin and display little local folding or
disturbance. They tend to have a regional dip to the northwest. Unconsolidated
Quaternary deposits cover the valley floors along the streams. The valleys of the
Guyandotte and Mud Rivers are characterized by a general southeast to northnorthwest
orientation.
The major subdivisions of rock strata exposed in Lincoln County, listed from the
youngest to the oldest, consist of the Monongahela and Conemaugh Groups of the
upper Pennsylvanian period, the Allegheny Formation of the middle Pennsylvanian
period, and the Kanawha Formation of the Pottsville Group of the lower
Pennsylvanian period.
The northern half of the county is characterized by interbedded red and gray shale,
siltstone, and sandstone of the Conemaugh Group with some thin strata of limestone
and coal. The ridgetops in the northwestern part of the county are capped by the
similar strata of the Monongahela Group. Most of the soils associated with the rock
strata of the Conemaugh and Monongahela Groups formed in residuum. Examples
are the Upshur and Gilpin soils.
The southern half of the county is characterized by interbedded sandstone,
siltstone, shale, limestone, and coal of the Conemaugh Group and the shale, coal,
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