16 May 2016

Trace fossils in the Massanutten Sandstone

Posted by Callan Bentley

Over the weekend, my wife and I took a walk with our son at the Storybrook Trail, an accessible trail with a fine overlook to the east over the Page Valley.

There, the Massanutten Sandstone shows a bunch of big beefy trace fossils at this site: both bedding-parallel (Arthophycus-like) and bedding-perpendicular (Skolithos-like) traces.

Here’s Bax on a photogenic slab of the quartz arenite, showing the inch-wide bioturbation:

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A short distance away, and a few meters lower in the section, there were these decent Skolithos, clearly cutting across bedding, with both highlighted by hematite staining.

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This was a cool visit. Though I’ve lived here in the Massanutten Range for 4 years, and I’ve been twice to Storybrook, I never wandered over to these exposures before. It was fun to see these neat features, and to share them with my son.