Cockeysville Marble

Cockeysville Marble
Stratigraphic range: Precambrian, Cambrian, or Ordovician

Polished slab of the marble from Cockeysville. Width of slab inside black border is approximately 10.7 cm.
Type metamorphic
Unit of Glenarm Supergroup
Underlies Wissahickon Formation
Overlies Setters Formation
Thickness about 750 feet[1]
Lithology
Primary marble
Location
Region Piedmont of Maryland
Type section
Named for Cockeysville, Maryland
Named by Williams and Darton, 1892[2]

The Cockeysville Marble is a Precambrian, Cambrian, or Ordovician marble formation in Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard Counties, Maryland. It is described as a predominantly metadolomite, calc-schist, and calcite marble, with calc-gneiss and calc-silicate marble being widespread but minor.[1]

Sample of Massive Metadolostone Member of Cockeysville Marble, from old quarry near Lower Dam of Loch Raven Reservoir, Baltimore County, Maryland

The extent of this formation was originally mapped in 1892[2] within Baltimore County.

Quarrying

The Beaver Dam Quarry in Cockeysville, c. 1898

The Cockeysville Marble has been quarried in Beaver Dam within Cockeysville and other locations in Maryland. A historical account is given in Maryland Geological Survey Volume Two.[3]

The Washington Monument in Baltimore and the one in Washington, D.C. are constructed from the Cockeysville Marble.

References

  1. 1 2 Geologic Map of Maryland, 1968. Cleaves, E. T., Edwards, J. Jr., and Glaser, J. D. Maryland Geological Survey. Scale 1:250,000.
  2. 1 2 Williams, G.H., and Darton, N.H., 1892, Geologic map of Baltimore and vicinity: U.S. Geological Survey, Map to accompany "Guide to Baltimore".
  3. ↑ Maryland Geological Survey Volume Two, by W. B. Clark, 1898. Johns Hopkins University Press. (Google Books)
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