The geology in the campus area and surrounding region provides an outdoor laboratory that is used in many of your geology classes. Immediately below campus, in Cliff Park, the two most common rock formations in the region, underlying much of the Springfield area, are exposed. The upper, massive, light grey rock which forms the cliffs in Cliff Park and Ferncliff Cemetery is the Cedarville Dolomite of Silurian (Niagaran) age. Immediately below is the Springfield Dolomite, a thinner, more distinctly layered rock unit. Springfield is the type locality for the formation called Springfield Dolomite, meaning that the characteristics of this formation are best exhibited in the Springfield area. Both of these units contain sporadic marine fossils and were once soft lime muds and sands resting on a middle Silurian seafloor.

The distinctive overhang at the contact between these two rock units is caused by the Springfield eroding away more rapidly than the Cedarville. As the Springfield Dolomite eroded beneath the Cedarville Dolomite in the past, blocks of the Cedarville Dolomite slumped or fell onto the floodplain of Buck Creek. These blocks are visible up and down the Buck Creek valley.

Springfield, Ohio, derives its name, like many other localities of the same name across the U.S., from the "field of springs" that formed at the base of the cliffs along the Buck Creek valley. The natural groundwater spring shown here at the base of the cliff is typical of the many springs which used to occur in the Springfield area. The thin beds and greater fractures within the Springfield Dolomite provide greater permeability, the ability for water to flow through rock and sediment. Groundwater flows laterally along fractures and bedding surfaces within the Springfield Dolomite and emerges at the base of the cliff.

This groundwater flow is critical to Buck Creek's baseflow, that is the flow that occurs in a stream when it is not raining and surface runoff and stormflow are not occurring.
The natural groundwater spring shown here at the base of the cliff is typical of the many springs which used to occur in the Springfield area. Groundwater flows laterally along fractures and bedding surfaces within the Springfield Dolomite and emerges at the base of the cliff.

The geology representing more recent episodes of Geologic Time are also well represented in the Springfield region, including glacial till and outwash deposited by glaciers during the most recent glaciation and stream deposits representing erosion and deposition since then.  Particularly well-expressed in local streams is the stratigraphy associated with settlement of the area, early intensive agriculture, and later suburbanization. 

On the image to the right, the pre-settlement stratigraphy consisted of channel bed and overbank or flooplain deposits.  Since settlement, the original overbank deposits have been buried because of excessive soil erosion on upland areas.  This was followed by stream erosion, or entrenchment, of the channel bed due in part to increased runoff from impervious surfaces in urbanized areas of the watershed.  The stream entrenchment has exposed older, glacial till at the base of the image.

Students in geology courses study the erosion and depositional processes, the soils and sediments, and the geologic history of local streams as part of their coursework in the major and minor.

Description and Maps of the Cedarville and Springfield Dolomites from the U.S. Geological Survey

Download geologic maps and other maps from Ohio's GeoSurvey