Mew York State Education Department
 

New York State Museum

John M. Clarke Director

Bulletin 99
PALEONTOLOGY 15

GEOLOGIC MAP

OF THE

BUFFALO QUADRANGLE

BY

D. D. LUTHER

PREFACE

The map herewith presented affords accurate data in regard to
the surface rocks and succession of strata at and in the immediate
neighborhood of the second city of the State in size and importance;
over an area where the rocks yield and are eagerly exploited for
natural gas, natural cement and other industrial products. Stu¬
dents of geology in Buffalo will find the map and its accompany¬
ing text a detailed guide to the rock sections of the region and to
the scattered and often obscure outcrops of the formations.

The Buffalo quadrangle embraces geologic formations which ex¬
tend from the Upper Siluric well into the Upper Devonic. The
tracing of the boundaries of these formations here has been beset
with special difficulties arising from the essentially level character
of most of the region, the absence of creeks flowing across the
strike of the beds over much of the area and the presence of an all
obscuring mantle of glacial drift. The boundaries are therefore to
some degree constructional, but are believed to be as nearly correct
as can now be determined from data of every kind.

In approaching this region from the east the Helderberg escarp*
ment traversing the State as a notable topographic feature here
becomes lessened and flattened out; again, the northern edge of
the Appalachian plateau which enters the southern part of the