A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF LATE MIDDLE DEVONIAN PALEOSOLS WITHIN THE MANORKILL FORMATION, CATSKILL MAGNAFACIES, PLATTE CLOVE, NEW YORK

The area along Platte Clove Road, between Tannersville and West Saugerties, affords an exceptional vertical exposure of the fluvio-deltaic facies within the Late Middle Devonian Manorkill Formation of the Catskill Magnafacies. The exposure consists of (repeating) laterally continuous sandstone bodies that fine upwards into pedogenically modified silty-mudstone overbank deposits. Three paleosols were surveyed within overbank deposits along the Platte Clove Road exposure to determine changes in paleosol morphology throughout the section. Field investigations for all three profiles indicate strongly developed vertic soils with abundant pedogenic features including: curvilinear fractures, pedogenic slickensides, clay films, clay-filled and drab-haloed root traces. Preliminary micromorphological investigations confirm that well-developed soil horizons exhibit well-expressed skelsepic, lattisepic, and clino-bimasepic plasmic fabrics along with other pedogenic features such as cutans, pedotubules, and glaebules. Micromorphological analysis also confirms the presence of weak burial metamorphic fabrics and evidence for horizon truncation from overlying sandstone deposition, which was also observed in outcrop. Field investigations and preliminary micromorphological results suggest a variation in pedofacies within the vertic soils. This research, when combined with traditional sedimentological and stratigraphic analyses, provides an additional view of paleoenvironmental conditions within the Catskill Magnafacies.