Chickies Formation

The Cambrian Chickies Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. It is named for Chickies Rock, north of Columbia, Pennsylvania, along the Susquehanna River.

Description

The Chickies Formation is described as a light-gray to white, hard, massive quartzite and quartz schist with thin interbedded dark slate at the top. Included at the base is the Hellam Conglomerate Member. It is a rare metamorphic rock that has fossils; Skolithos is found throughout the formation.

Depositional age

Relative age dating places the Chickies in the Lower Cambrian Period, deposited between 542 and 520 million years ago.

Economic geology

The Chickies is quarried as a building stone and for aggregate. The stone used to build the restrooms at Valley Forge National Historical Park is Chickies quartzite.