The Kinzers Formation is a geologic formation in Pennsylvania. It preserves fossils dating back to the fourth stage of the Cambrian Period.
The base of the Kinzers Formation is primarily a dark-brown shale. The middle is a gray and white spotted limestone and, locally, marble having irregular partings. The top is a sandy limestone which weathers to a fine-grained, friable, porous, sandy mass.Berg, T. M., Edmunds, W. E., Geyer, A. R., and others, compilers, 1980, Geologic map of Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Geological Survey, 4th ser., Map 1, 2nd ed., 3 sheets, scale 1:250,000. Wilshusen formally divided the Kinzers into three members along these lines in his 1979 map of York, Pennsylvania. The members are called the Earthy Buff Limestone Member, Pure Limestone Member, and Shale Member.Wilshusen, J. P., 1979. Environmental geology of the greater York area, York County, Pennsylvania, Environmental Geology Report 6, Pennsylvania Geological Survey.
Type section Named from exposures at a railroad cut at Kinzers, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.Stose, G.W., and Jonas, A.I., 1922. The lower Paleozoic section in southeastern Pennsylvania, Washington Academy of Sciences, Journal v. 12, no. 5, p. 358-366
Other outcrops The Kinzers overlies the Vintage Dolomite at the type section of the Vintage at a railroad cut at Vintage, Pennsylvania.
High quality fossil specimens (Lagerstätte) were obtained from the Noah Getz Quarry, one mile north of Rohrerstown, Pennsylvania, but the quarry location is overgrown and disturbed by development. The fossils are from the Emigsville Member, and include the trilobite Olenellus thompsoni, the radiodont Lenisicaris pennsylvanica, the hymenocarine arthropod Tuzoia getzi, the edrioasteroid echinoderm Yorkicystis haefneri, and the hemichordate nest Margaretia dorus.Resser, C.E. & B.F. Howell. 1938. Lower Cambrian Olenellus zone of the Appalachians. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 49: 195-248, 13 pls. Noah Getz Quarry at mindat.org The Kinzers Formation is also notable for preserving one of the most diverse radiodont faunas of the Cambrian period, with at least ten species known, including members of the tamisiocarididae, anomalocarididae, and amplectobeluidae families.
The sponge Hazelia walcotti has also been found in the Kinzers. It is one of few sponges known from the Cambrian period of North America.Rigby, J. Keith, 1987. Early Cambrian sponges from Vermont and Pennsylvania, the only ones described from North America. Journal of Paleontology, Volume 61, Issue 3, May 1987, pp. 451-461 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022336000028638
See also
List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Pennsylvania Paleontology in Pennsylvania
References
External links