Geology of Bedford County, Pennsylvania

Bedford County, Pennsylvania is situated along the western border of the Ridge and Valley physiographic province, which is characterized by folded and faulted sedimentary rocks of early to middle Paleozoic age.

(PA Geological Survey Map 13) The stratigraphic record of sedimentary rocks within the county spans from the Cambrian Warrior Formation to the Pennsylvanian Conemaugh Group (in the Broad Top area).

Chestnut Ridge is a broad anticline held up by the Devonian Ridgeley Member of the Old Port Formation, also made of sandstone and conglomerate.

The many boulder fields obvious as rocky and often treeless areas on mountainsides within the county formed as a result of seasonal freeze-thaw cycles during the Pleistocene.

Natural gas fields and storage areas exist in southeastern Bedford County, primarily within folded Devonian rocks south of Breezewood.

View of water gaps cut by the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River through Evitts Mountain and Tussey Mountain , facing west from the summit of Kinton Knob, Wills Mountain , in Bedford County , Pennsylvania , with the town of Bedford in the foreground.
Oblique air photo facing north of central Bedford County , Pennsylvania , in December 2006, showing Wills , Evitts , and Tussey Mountains from center to right.
Roadcut along Rt. 30 (Everett bypass) through Warrior Ridge, showing the lower Devonian sequence from the Corriganville Limestone at left to the Ridgeley Sandstone to the Needmore Shale at right, and Tussey Mountain in background at left.
Outcrop of the Devonian Catskill Formation with a well-displayed thrust fault , located about 3 miles west of the village of Juniata Crossing on the north side of Route 30, Bedford County , Pennsylvania .
Fossil coral of the Devonian Keyser Formation in the New Enterprise New Paris Quarry, Chestnut Ridge Bedford County , Pennsylvania .
The Blue Knob massif (the summit is the snow field in the middle of the range).
Prominent meander in the Raystown Branch near Breezewood