Evidence of an ancient river bed?

If you can hold out until farmer comes back from eating his holiday dinner, I'll bet he can help.

The man is a rock.

The Pottsville Group is a basql unit of the Pa system. It lies on top of an angulqr unconformity of the lqst Misisipean units.
Its sources were orogenic,(a mountain range to the East) In what would be todays Appalachian Piedmont)
The distributaries were regionally unique and were usually high energy braided streams that carried the basal cgls..
(These were rather thin units and are really good identification source clasts for provenance identification.
Id start with some good correlation charts of the whole Pa System state by state (Berg , 1987) hs a good correlation chart and thickness map for the type section Pottsville rocks.
Then, if youre a student or hobbyist, Id go into the field to see these depositional areas in cross section and stratigraphic section. Keep in mind the makeup of the clasts and theorize where they came from (to the east)

Whatdiditelya?

Im still having trouble with my finger aid> I see that Im still hitting the Q key instead of an A. My boogered up hand will not cooperate even with that gizmo I made

Im still having trouble with my finger aid> I see that Im still hitting the Q key instead of an A. My boogered up hand will not cooperate even with that gizmo I made

You are still the solid go to rockologist.

You need to understand that the Mississippi embayment covered the entire south for millions and millions of years. I am about 300 miles north of your position and set on a very, very old sea shore. If you trace the outline of the Cumberland and Highland rim it shows this ancient sea in which the still rising Appalachians and Lookout Mountain are islands. Remember, a fossil record of the region was washed away eons ago and it is difficult to say just when this happened. Conversely, the strata was effected in a similar fashion and that should used to adjust your search for clues to the origin of the area. The Pennsylvanian age you mentioned has to be adjusted by this fact-Your entire area was thousands of feet underwater for millions of years and was
washed back out to sea repeatedly.
One clue would be if there is bedrock limestone that has been forced to break through the surface as a result of tectonics. In places here it is 200 feet high and this may be the result of pressure released when the water receded-no one knows this for sure however if angled bedrock is present it could be a very old seashore.
We know that massive reptiles and later birds and large mammals roamed this area for at least 200 million years yet there is no fossil record that any of these creatures ever existed-when searching for clues of the origin of the area remember this as the rock formations left-can't be trusted as the evidence solely.

we dont have a presumptive map but I think ( from his description) hes in the Appalachian tier, not the ME. (strat of Alabama (1984) - Al Geol Survey pub, is a pretty good environmental strat identifier )

Yes, I agree. The Appalachian tier. 20 years ago someone had the bright idea of building a super conducting super collider in southern Tennessee near the Alabama border. The environmental impact study took a year and a half, untold millions, and the report was 28 volumes. It contains a wealth of information of the strata and detailed studies of the area. The geology was explored with wasted money to the very extreme. I still have about 8 of the volumes here and perhaps I have others stocked away somewhere.
Was wondering if you knew this and do you think any of this boondoggle-it was never beyond the environmental impact study- could be on the internet.
I'm pretty sure it would interest you.

Oy veh. I had a part in " Uranium Mine Tailings/ Formerly Utilized Sites-remeidal programs" (the old U mining and Manhattan dump sites ). SOOOO, Im not a big appreciator of the way decisions were made.

Sounds like youve had similar experience? (Can you give the secret handshake?)