STRATIGRAPHY AND STRUCTURE CASTLETON AREA VERMONT
STRATIGRAPHY AND STRUCTURE CASTLETON AREA VERMONT
STRATIGRAPHY AND STRUCTURE CASTLETON AREA VERMONT
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West Rutland are among the most beautiful decorative stones in the<br />
nation. Secondary chlorite and sericite and occasional grains of primary<br />
quartz are found in the Beldens proper, and the Weybridge member (?)<br />
contains sandstone beds and probably disseminated graphite. Bain<br />
(1934, p. 134) reported actinolite and orthoclase in the Beldens at West<br />
Rutland.<br />
Thickness and age: The Beldens at West Rutland is about 200 feet<br />
thick (Bain, 1931, p. 516). It contains no guide fossils in the eastern<br />
Champlain Valley. Bryozoans (Dana, 1877, p. 345) and "abundant<br />
brachiopods" (Cady, 1945, p. 552) were found by Wing in the Wey -<br />
bridge member.<br />
Middlehury Limestone<br />
Name: Cady (1945, p. 552) described the Middlebury limestone in its<br />
type locality west of Otter Creek at Middlebury Village, Vermont and<br />
on the Middlebury College campus.<br />
Description: The buff-streaked, dark blue-gray, thin-bedded, granular<br />
marble that is exposed at the base of the Taconic Range at West Rutland<br />
is correlated with the Middlebury limestone. Some of the 1- or 2-inch<br />
beds in the rock are crowded with small recrystallized gastropods. This<br />
unit grades downward into the upper Beldens "Westland" marble<br />
(Plate I) to the east.<br />
Thickness: At least 60 feet of Middlebury is exposed, and its possible<br />
extension to the west is concealed by the surface mantle. The Middlebury<br />
is not present on the eastern side of the valley at West Rutland, where<br />
Whipple marble lies unconformably on the Beldens formation. Removal<br />
of less rock by erosion during the Trenton epoch probably accounts<br />
for the preservation of all the Beldens and some of the Middlebury<br />
on the western side of the valley. Cady estimated the Middlebury to<br />
be "not more than 600 feet thick" (1945, p. 553) north of the Castleton<br />
area.<br />
Age: Wing (Dana, 1877, p. 338) sent fossils that he had collected at<br />
West Rutland to Elkanah Billings for identification. The latter (1872,<br />
p. 133) gave the fossil locality as "the marble quarries, West Rutland,<br />
not one hundred yards northwest of an abandoned marble quarry, the<br />
most northern one worked on the southwestern side of the valley, say<br />
150 rods southwest from Barns' Hotel, West Rutland." The enclosing<br />
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