Billy Goat Trail Introduction

Two weeks ago, on February 24th, I went on a field trip to Billy Goat Trail with my structural geology class.   Billy Goat Trail follows the path of the C&O Canal and the Potomac River.The C&O Canal stands for Chesapeake and Ohio Canal which was built parallel to the Potomac River and divided by Mary's Wall.  Led by our professor, Callan Bentley, we learned about the geologic history and formation of the area. This was also my first time using a Brunton compass out in the field.  After much confusion and asking for the TA, Aaron's, help I finally managed to get a hang of what I was doing.  Hopefully this information sticks, otherwise field camp will be rough.  Another thing this trip taught me was to invest in a good rain jacket.  The day started off sunny but Mother Nature decided to be mean and give us rain.  My rain jacket was soaked within 30 minutes.  Since I'm going to Ireland for field camp, I absolutely need a good rain jacket.

At our first stop, Callan described the formation of the area and sent us on our way to measure strike and dip of outcrops with the profound advice, "Friends don't let friends map float."  This is a picture of the first fold that I had used a Brunton compass on.  Silly thing to be proud of, I know.

The purpose of gathering the strike and dip of outcrops was so we could hypothesize whether or not the formation of Mather Gorge was due to a fault.  In order to do so, the class compiled all their data and we must make a conclusion from that.  But before I do that, I want to talk about the geologic history of the area.