1 May 2020

Friday fold: Hopeville Anticline

Posted by Callan Bentley

Reader Eric Fulmer has contributed a fold as a balm for the end of another week of COVID-19 self-quarantine. Check it out:

Eric writes,

I was in Hopeville, WV a couple of years ago. The entire area between Cabins and Hopeville is a real joy (geologically and recreationally) as some of the most resistant rocks of the Mid-Atlantic Appalachians are folded and exposed in quick succession and with great relief. I am particularly fond of seeing the western-most exposure of Tuscarora Sandstone in the Wills Mountain Anticline along the North Fork Gap. Immediately next to Hopeville (Harman’s Cabins, just off of WV-55), a textbook anticline of Oriskany Sandstone is exposed where the “North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac” cuts through the Hopeville Anticline. The hinge line is high up the hill side and the western limb plunges into the earth at a ~35 degree angle. The competent sandstone forms a nice cliff face and exposes easy to identify bedding layers across the outcrop. Decent views of the entire anticline can be found from the Cabins Assembly of God upper parking lot.

 

Thanks Eric!
Happy Friday to all.