osits have a greater variety of heavy minerals than the underlying non-marine sediments. They contain abundant epidote; chloritoid, first appearing at the base of the Merchantville formation, is persistently present. Garnet is found in the Merchantville and the Mount Laurel-Navesink formations. The heavy mineral composition of the Cretaceous sediments is shown in table IV.
Delaware has an abundant supply of ground water of a quality suitable for most purposes. About 30 million gallons of water a day was pumped from the ground in 1954. It is estimated that this is roughly 1/16 of the optimum yield. This water is derived from nine groups or series of water-bearing units and is obtained from wells which yield as much as 1,100 gallons per minute. Thousands of wells serve agriculture, industry, municipalities, and domestic users. Geographically, Delaware is situated along the Atlantic coast of the United States in two physiographic provinces: the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain. The Piedmont is a belt of rolling foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It is separated from the Coastal Plain by the Fall Line, a narrow zone of rapids or falls along which rivers and creek descend rapidly from the mature valleys of the Piedmont to the sluggish tidal estuaries of the coastal area. The Coastal Plain is a flat or gently undulating plain of relatively low altitude, which borders the Atlantic Ocean and its estuarine embayments.
In the Coastal Plain of Delaware, the non-marine Cretaceous sands and clays are separated from the Tertiary formations by a series of marine formations of Upper Cretaceous age. The sedimentary and hydrologic characteristics of these formations deserve detailed study because some of them are water-bearing beds. whereas others act as confining beds. A clear understanding of their relative age. and the presence or absence of unconformities is needed for proper correlation with formations found in wells throughout the State. as well as in Maryland and New Jersey.
Fossil collectors have been attracted to Delaware since the late 1820s when the excavation of the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal first exposed marine fossils of Cretaceous age. Since then, many technical and nontechnical works have been written about the fossils. However, there has not been a single source for casual or student collectors to turn to for help in the identification of typical finds. This paper is written to fill that void as well as provide general information about fossils and specific information on geologic formations and collecting localities at the Canal. This report is not designed to be an encyclopedia on the fossils of the Canal but focuses on those fossils found most frequently. The majority of the fossils collected today are from the spoil areas in the vicinity of the Reedy Point Bridge. Thus, the chapter on classification concentrates on the fossils of the Mount Laurel Formation, the stratigraphic unit dredged in that area.
This guide contains illustrations of fossils from Delaware Geological Survey Bulletin No. 3 ("Marine Upper Cretaceous Formations of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal") and Report of Investigations No. 7 ("An Invertebrate Fauna from the Upper Cretaceous of Delaware"). The identifications have been revised to be as accurate as possible so that this guide will be useful to those fossil collectors interested in classifying their "finds."
This map shows the surficial geology of New Castle County, Delaware at a scale of 1:100,000. Maps at this scale are useful for viewing the general geologic framework on a county-wide basis, determining the geology of watersheds, and recognizing the relationship of geology to regional or county-wide environmental or land-use issues. This map, when combined with the subsurface geologic information, provides a basis for locating water supplies, mapping ground-water recharge areas, and protecting ground and surface water. Geologic maps are also used to identify geologic hazards, such as sinkholes and flood-prone areas, to identify sand and gravel resources, and for supporting state,