Part 15

MARBLE is a granular rock composed of calcite crystals. It is formed when heat volatilizes the bituminous coloring agents of ordinary limestone and simultaneously causes enlargement of the calcite grains. It is the principal rock in the Berkshire Valley in which North Adams, Adams and Pittsfield are located.

OPHICALCITE is a lime-silicate rock. It is formed by the chemical reactions of hot solutions on limestone or marble at considerable depth within the earth. The original calcite is converted into diopside, garnet, vesuvianite and tremolite, forming a rock that may be massive, or which may preserve some of the original bedded structure. It is found in association with the crystalline limestone and magnetite at the old iron mine, located one mile north of Bernardston.

SERPENTINE is a dark-green rock made almost exclusively of the mineral serpentine. It results from the reaction of hot solutions on olivine and pyroxene rocks (peridotites). Serpentinite is present in the Westfield marble quarry and at Zoar on the south side of the Deerfield River.

SOAPSTONE is composed principally of talc. It, too, results from the chemical activity of hot solutions ascending through serpentine and causing the mineral transformation. Bodies of this material are associated with the serpentinite at Westfield and Zoar, and northward in sections of Vermont. It is mined for talc, but in colonial days it found many uses. The colonists used cross-cut saws to make blocks for foot warmers in their sleighs, to control the heat in the old wood-fired ovens and to make water pipes before iron and lead were available in adequate quantities. Many soapstone articles may be seen--and purchased--in Wiggins Country Store and in other good antique shops through the valley. One of the most primitive Indian cultures in this region utilized soapstone pots, and exhibits are on display at both the Springfield Museum of Natural History and the Amherst College Museum.

Conclusion

To anyone who has had the patience to read through the preceding pages and to reach these concluding remarks, it must be obvious that geology is not merely a pastime for specialists. It does not take half a dozen college and university degrees to collect rocks and minerals, and to understand what they mean; or to appreciate not alone the beauty, but also the long and involved, yet logical, origin of scenery; or to comprehend from a rock-cut or cliff the vast changes which have occurred in the course of geologic time; or to grasp the current significance, as well as the historical importance, of such rock and mineral products as the trap, the limestone, the pyrite, the lead veins, the soapstone, the varved clay, the gravel banks.

Whether one's interests are practical, historical, acquisitive, esthetic, philosophical or scientific, the geological features of the Connecticut Valley possess the variety to gratify them all. One must indeed be blind if he cannot find something of interest--a hobby--even a profession in the geological display spread before him in central Massachusetts. Let it not be thought that this little volume tells the whole story. On the contrary, its authors expect to have a difficult time justifying their sins of omission, more particularly because many of the omissions have been conscious and deliberate. But they trust they have left for the reader a wealth of features which he can make his own by right of discovery. For it will not take him very long to penetrate the fourth dimension of geologic time more deeply and intimately than is possible in the pages of a book.

Footnotes

The figures denote the distance in miles from the starting point to the feature mentioned.

General Index

"P" indicates plate following page number indicated

A Agglomerate, 22 P, 24, 36, 72, 84 Albite, 109 Albite granite, 116 Allanite, 88, 110 Alluvial fans, Triassic, 19, 28, 43, 46 Alluvial plain, 3, 21 Alluvial wash, 25, 43 Amphibole, 110 Appalachian disturbance, 42 Argillite, Leyden, 64 Arkose, 114 Arkose, "first" sandstone, 86 Ash, volcanic, 28, 66, 71 Augite, 110 Autunite, 110 Azurite, 64

B Bank, undercut, 2 Barite, 30, 63, 108 Basalt, 72, 115 Basalt, columns, 71 Basin, Triassic, 27, 43 Batholith, 32 Beaches, sloping south, 49 Bedrock, depth, 10 Biotite, 109 Block mountains, 25 Boulders, striated, 21 Brickyards, 4, 69

C Calcite, 64, 108 Calendar beds, 69 Cambrian, 37, 38 Canyon, Little Westfield River, 61 Carboniferous period, 33, 42 Carboniferous swamps, 34, 42 Caves, Sunderland, 55 Chalcopyrite, 64, 108 Channel scars, 79 Chicopee shale, 18 Chlorite, 110 Cinder cone, 25 Cirque, 10 Clay, 4 Clay beds, 69 Clay, distorted, 6, 66 P, 70 Clay stones, concretions, 70 Clays, banded, 4, 6 Clays, record climate, 69 Climate, Triassic, 23 Coal, 33 Coal basin, 34, 42 Coal swamps, Carboniferous, 33, 40 Coal, Triassic, 22 Coherent rock, effect, 12 Columns, basaltic, 60 Concretions, 70 Conglomerate, 20, 25, 28, 54, 56, 99, 113 Conglomerate, boulder, 21 Conglomerate, Devonian, 35 Conglomerate, Mt. Toby, 54 Conglomerate, Triassic, 19, 21 Contact, conglomerate with crystallines, 59 Crater, 25 Cretaceous period, 17, 46 Cretaceous sediments, 16 Crops, 7 Cut-banks, 11

D Delta, 7, 8, 49 Delta, Deerfield River, 58, 95 Delta, Florence, 89 Delta, glacial lakes, 49, 69 Delta, Long Plain Brook, 98 Delta, Millers River, 58 Delta, Sawmill River, 99 Delta, Westfield River, 62 Desert climate, Triassic, 46 Devonian, 39 Diabase, 62, 115 Dike, 32, 32 P, 42 Dinosaur habits, 67 Dinosaur tracks, 22, 22 P, 66, 66 P, 81, 96 Dinosaurs, 18, 46 Dinosaurs, bipedal, 67 Disturbance, Appalachian, 42 Disturbance, Shickshock, 40 Disturbance, Taconic, 40 Drainage, Atlantic, 15, 47 Drumlin, South Amherst, 9, 84 Dunes, 4, 49, 56, 87, 98

E Earthquakes, ancient, 19, 26 Eastern Upland, 32, 33, 37 Entrenched valleys, 12 Eocene period, 46 Erratics, 8, 82, 89 Everlasting hills, 11

F Fans, alluvial, 19 Fault, buried, 24 Fault, eastern border, 19, 25 Fault fissure, 66 Faulting, at Notch, 73, 75 Fault movement, 25, 26, 60 Faults, Turners Falls, 44 Fish, extinction of Triassic, 68 Fish fossils, Durham, Conn., 22 Fish fossils, Sunderland, Mass., 22, 68 Fish, living conditions, 68 Fish, Triassic, 22 Fish, Whittemore's Ferry, 69 Flood level, 1936, 82, 96, 97 Floodplain, 3, 4, 79 Floods, 1, 3, 4, 6 Floor, Triassic basin, 30 Folds, 34, 36, 40, 42 Footprint localities, 66, 68 Footprints, dinosaur, 22, 22 P, 67, 84 Fore-set beds, 8 Forests, oldest, 40

G Galena, 20, 30, 63, 108 Garnet, 111 Glacier, 8, 9, 21, 42, 46 Glacier recession, 9, 49 Glacier slope, 48 Glaciers, Permian age, 42 Gneiss, 28, 118 Gneiss, horizontal, 97 Gneiss, Pelham, 79 Gorge, Cold River, 92 Gorge, Deerfield River, 56, 92, 92 P Gorge, Little Westfield, 105 Gorges, buried, 10 Gorges, Pliocene age, 48 Grade of rivers, 15 Granite, 21, 28, 33, 34, 42, 54, 116 Granite, pre-Triassic, 100 Granite quarry, 88 Granodiorite, 116 Granodiorite porphyry, 116 Granodiorite, Williamsburg, 64 Graywacke, 114

H "Horse sheds," 76 Hot springs, 30, 42 Hudson drainage, 15 Hurricane, 12

I Ice Age, 10, 48, 56 Icebergs, 8 Ice-cakes, 8 Ice dispersal centers, 48 Ice recession, rate, 49 Ice sheet, 5, 9, 52, 72 Ice thickness, 48 Indian campsites, 3 Indian graves, 3 Intrusive, 33 Inundation, 3 Iron ore, 34, 35

J Joints, Mt. Sugarloaf, 56 Jurassic period, 46

K Kame terraces, 82, 95 Kaolinite, 111 Kettle holes, 82, 83, 100 Kyanite, 111

L Labradorite, 110 Lake Bascom, 93 Lake beds, 22 Lake deposits, Triassic, 55 Lake Hadley, 5, 49, 52, 70 Lake Hadley, glacial bed, 59, 79 Lake, ice margin, 82 Lake shore, Amherst, 79 Lake shore, old, 7 Lake shore, slope of, 7, 49 Lake Springfield, 5, 49, 103 Lake Springfield, antiquity, 70 Lake Springfield, frozen, 70 Lakes, post-glacial, 49 Lakes, Triassic, 46, 56, 68, 101 Landslide deposits, 46 Landslide, Triassic, 56 Landslides, ancient, 19, 21 Lava, amygdaloidal, 104 Lava, columnar, 32 P, 60, 60 P, 71 Lava, Deerfield flow, 101 Lava field, 72 Lava flow, 25, 26, 28, 43, 44, 48, 60 Lava, Holyoke flow, 26, 44, 81, 85 Lava, pillow type, 96 Lava, "second," 85 Lead veins, 30, 63, 65 Limestone, 35, 40, 114 Limestone, Bernardston, 40 Limestone, Cambrian, 38 Limestone, Devonian, 34, 35 Limonite, 111 Longmeadow sandstone, 18 Lowland, excavated, 13 Lowland, Miocene age, 55 Lowland relief, 53

M Malachite, 64 Marble, 118 Marble, Westfield, 61, 105 Maturity, 14 Meander, 3, 62 Meander scarps, 56, 57, 104 Meander scarps, Sunderland, 57 Meanders, Westfield River, 62 Microcline, 109 Microcline granite, 117 Mine, West Farms, 64 Mineral, definition, 106 Minerals, genetic classification, 107 Minerals, metamorphic, 111 Minerals, pegmatite, 109 Minerals, sedimentary, 111 Minerals, soil, 111 Minerals, vein, 63, 107 Mine shaft, 64 Miocene, 11, 14, 30, 55 Miocene lowland, 14 Monadnocks, 12 P, 55 Moraine, terminal, 8, 48 Mountain, eastern block, 19, 28 Mountain, exhumed, 48, 100 Mountain, Triassic, 21, 54 Mt. Warner rocks, 87 Muscovite, 109

N Natural levee, 2, 3 New England landscape, 15 New England peneplain, 12 P, 15, 45, 74, 92 P New England upland, 51, 55, 90, 94 New England upland, monadnocks, 55 Notch, 25 Notch, origin, 44, 74 Notch quarry, 84

O Olivine, 110 Ophicalcite, 118 Orchard land, 8 Ordovician, 36, 33, 39 Ox-bow, 3 Ox-bow Lake, 4 P, 82

P Paleozoic era, 42 Pegmatite, 28, 32, 82 Peneplain, erosional plain, 46 Peneplain, New England, 12 P, 15, 45, 74 Peridotite, 36, 38, 115 Piedmont plains, 40 Piracy by Farmington River, 47 Pitchblende, 110 Plains, lacustrine, 49 Plankton, Cambro-Ordovician, 36 Plants, Triassic, 22 Plateau-like upland, 11 Playa, 21, 22, 23, 46, 68 Pliocene, 10, 11 Pliocene uplift, 48 Providence basin, 33 Pyrite, 64, 108 Pyromorphite, 64

Q Quarry, Westfield Marble, 61, 62 Quartz, 30, 63, 107 Quartz porphyry, 116 Quartzite, Cheshire, 93 Quartzite conglomerate, 35