Nuttall Sandstone
From West Virginia (WV) Cyclopedia
In the northern New River Gorge region, in Fayette County, and in the Summersville Lake region, in Nicholas County, the Nuttall Sandstone is the most obvious cliff-forming strata. This massive and highly resistant sandstone also sustains the broad tablelands beyond the region's older rivers and streams. The Nuttall is divided into upper and lower layers. The Lower Nuttall Sandstone forms the cliffs along the rim of the New River Gorge near the New River Gorge Bridge and at the Endless Wall and Beauty Mountain rock-climbing areas. At Hawks Nest State Park its upper and lower ledges coalesce into one cliff from 175- to 200-feet thick. The Lower Nuttall Sandstone descends briefly below the level of the Kanawha River to form the Kanawha Falls, 10-miles west of the gorge. The surface of the strata is exposed in several locations near Lookout, WV, in the form of downs and low natural bridges. It outcrops along the rim of the upper valley of Keeney's Creek as Spy Rock near Lookout, WV, and has been weathered into Cup-and-Saucer Rocks, near Winona, WV.
The Nuttall Sandstone is geologically divided into two massive beds, both 75-to-100-feet thick and generally divided by five-to-ten feet of dark, sandy shale and sometimes a thin bed of coal. Both beds form sheer, nearly vertical cliffs in the gorges of the New, Gauley, and Meadow Rivers, where the lower bed is a more prominent cliff-maker. The Upper Nuttall Sandstone has been quarried, and notably used in construction of the Fayette County Jail and Fayette County National Bank, in Fayetteville, WV.
Upper Nuttall Sandstone -- the upper sandstone member has been described by the West Virginia Geological Survey as 40-to-100 feet thick and "heavy- to current-bedded, grayish-white, reddish-grey to brown, seldom pebbly,... and 5-to-15 feet above the more prominent cliff-maker -- the Lower Nuttall ledge." The eroded upper surface of the upper member is exposed in pastures along U.S. Route 60 just northwest of Lookout.
Lower Nuttall Sandstone -- the lower sandstone member has been described by the West Virginia Geologic as 75-to-110 feet thick and "usually massive- to current-bedded, medium- to coarse-grained, highly siliceous, pebbly to conglomeratic." The lower ledge of Nuttall sandstone is very like the upper ledge of the Raleigh Sandstone, counterpart of the Nuttall in the southern gorge, forming similar tablelands and cliffs along the canyon's rim.
