Fern Valley is The College of Wooster field station in Holmes County. The HYDRO26 class ventured to the site for a quick walk on a spectacular day. The mission was to learn some basic geology and examine sediments that we need to learn to recognize in water well logs when we build cross-sections across this buried valley site.
The Wilkin Run water levels were low and somewhat murky after some intense rains a few days prior to the trip. “Wood is good” in streams, yet it can be challenging to navigate. There was relatively little whining in the group, which was surprising.
Gabe (above) exploring an entrenched tributary along an alluvial fan. One of the Wooster students is mapping the Fern Valley Station as part of his thesis and below is a map of some of his sites.
3200 feet below the Fern Valley field station is oil and gas production in the Clinton Sandstone, one of the big oil plays drilled in the 1950s and 60s and still active today. Now the wells on the property serve as a gas storage field maintained by Columbia Gas.
A photo above taken a few years ago that illustrates the various sediments described in water well logs in the area. We classify this as ice-contact stratified drift from the last advance of the Laurentide Icesheet.
The clay contact shown in the photo above is at the stream bed level at this site and is easily penetrated with a tile probe.
Further downstream (down section) the clay is more deeply incised.
Taken together after visiting several out crops and examining well logs a cross-section of the valley can be constructed. The stratigraphy along with ongoing mass movement are shown above.
The group is photographed on the scarp of the main normal fault – the photographer is standing on the footwall. Some classify this fault as a sort of listric normal fault.
The mass movement starts as a downdropped block “sliding” along the underlying clay. With distance from the fault the overlying ice-contact stratifield drift transitions into a sediment gravity flow shown above. The sediment is then fed into the river which takes it away. This is an ongoing process and the mass movements have the potential to impact the pipelines and other infrastructure in the region.
Maddie had the bus ready when we returned and took us on a tour on the way back to Wooster including a viewing of the newly renovated Shreve Lake (show below) with its new dam.
Keep up the great posts, HYDRO26!