Carbon. - Area, 400 square miles; population in 1880,
31,923. From the Pocono plateau (2000' A.T.) in the north-eastern
part of the county the Lehigh river descends in a wide curve, and
cuts a long, picturesque gorge through nearly flat-lying Carboniferous
and upper Devonian rocks nearly to Mauch Chunk; passes here to the
east end of the Southern Anthracite coal field, lying in a deep basin;
and then cuts south through the vertically upturned outcrops of XI,
X, IX, and VIII to Weissport; where VIII rolls over the antclinal
axis to form the shallow Parryville (or Wire hill) basin holding a
long, isolated strip of Catskill (IX) which stretches from the Monroe
line westward nearly to the Schuylkill county line. The river then
traverses the recovered north dip of VIII, VII, VI, and V, and makes
the superb Lehigh Water Gap through the Medina and Oneida rocks of
the Blue Mountain (No. IV.) This is one of the longest and finest
rock sections on exhibition to geologists in our State, and after
repeated measurements may be thus described: Productive coal measures,
975'; Pottsville conglomerate, XII, 880'; Mauch Chunk red shale, XI,
2170'; Pocono gray sandstone, X, 1255'; Catskill red sands and shales,
IX, 7145'; Chemung shales and Portage flags, 1290'; Genessee slates,
290'; Hamilton sands and shales, 760'; Marcellus shales, 800' (=VIII,
3140'); Oriskany sandstone, VII, 340'; Lower Helderberg limestone
and shales, 295'; Onondaga and Clinton red and gray shales and marls,
say 2000'; Medina sandstone, 665'; Oneida Conglomerate, 460'; in all
19,325 feet of Carboniferous, Devonian, and Silurian rocks, stretching
their parallel outcrops east and west across the county. With the
exception of excellent limestone and hydraulic cement quarried extensively
on the front face of the Devil's Wall or Steinberg ridge facing the
Water Gap, the only useful mineral of the county is Anthracite coal,
preserved in two groups of long, narrow, tightly compresses basins
or rock folds, the one ending in a point on the top of the mountain
at Mauch Chunk, and the other ending in a similar mountain spur west
of the Oxbow Bend of the Lehigh river. The first-mentioned is the
eastward extension of the Southern or Pottsville-Tamaqua coal field;
the other is a virtual extension eastward of the Middle of Shamokin-Mahanoy
coal field. The first is now known as the Panther creek basin; the
other comprehends (inside of Carbon county) most of the Beaver Meadow
basin, and a small part of the Silver Brook basin. Careful recent
measurements at Lansford make out the following section: Shales-;
slates and sandstone 300'; coal 1'; --69'; coal 4';
--59'; coal G, 6'; --160'; coal F (red ash) 16'; --9';
coal 2'; --52'; coal 1'; --68'; Mammoth coal bed
50'; --29'; coal 3'; --34'; Buck Mountain coal 11'; --40';
coal 1'; --68'; coal 1'; Pottsville conglomerate No.
XII, 770'; total 1855'. The Mammoth bed was first quarried on the
top of the mountain, (in 1792) where it lies flat, and consists of
21 separate layers of coal, aggregating 40' 3", separated by 20 layers
of slate, aggregating 12' 10"; the whole bed being, therefore, 53
feet thick; but its average thickness east of Nesquihoning colliery
is estimated at 29', and from Rhume run to the Schuylkill county line
at 55' (with only 27' of coal.) The Red ash bed averages 13'
(9' of coal) east, and 9' (5' of coal) west of Rhume run. Mr. Ashburner
estimates that of the 293,000,000 tons of Mammoth coal in Panther
creek basin in Carbon county, only 56,943,000 have thus far been mined
out; of 50,000,000 tons Red Ash bed, only 5,178,000; of 120,000,000
all other beds, only 572,000; i.e., of 463,000,000 tons in
all, only 62,693,000 have been mined out. Of the mined areas, only
from 51 to 60 per cent of the coal has been won (since 1820,) but
this waste has decreased from 10 to 15 per cent since 1881. The Nesquehoning
mountain, between the two coal fields, is a great anticlinal roll
of Pocono sandstone X, underneath which can be seen in the gorge of
the Lehigh the red Catskill strata rolling in several low and broad
rock waves; consequently, all search for workable coal in this mountain
must result in disappointment. The absence of the Upper Helderberg
limestone, Cauda-galli grit and Schoharie sandstone formations (at
the bottom of the thick and soft Mauch Chunk red shale formation XI
is a striking feature in this as in the neighboring counties. (See
Report AA.)
From: A geological hand atlas of the sixty-seven
counties of Pennsylvania :embodying the results of the field work
of the survey, from 1874 to 1884. By J. P. Lesley. (Report of
progress (Geological Survey of Pennsylvania), v. X ) Harrisburg, PA
: Board of commissioners for the second geological survey, 1885.
Return to Geologic
Maps of Pennsylvania Counties
Copyright © 2000, Pennsylvania State University
Libraries. All rights reserved.
Please send comments to: ems@psulias.psu.edu
Last modified: 5/3/01
