East Amherst Street by McCarthy Park (Onondaga Limestone)

This year I am changing schools and teaching Middle School Earth Science at St. Mark School near the zoo. This morning, I did some geological research in the area. St. Mark is above the Akron Dolostone. I could not find any rock outcrops at the surface anywhere.  Does anyone know of any rock outcrops of the Akron Dolostone near St. Mark (Zoo/Parkside)?

The closest rock outcrop I found so far was on East Amherst Street by McCarthy Park. There are nice outcrops on the side of the street on both sides. I posted a picture below. According to the map, this rock is classified as Onondaga and Bois Blanc Limestones.

To the east of McCarthy Park is an old quarry (Amherst Quarry Lake). This is a very interesting area. There is a very interesting small trapezoid of Akron Dolostone more to the northeast. Does anyone know much about this region?

Stephen Condon

The quarry was the old Bennett Quarry. Known as a source of eurypterid fossils from the Bertie Formation on the quarry floor.

Stephen Condon

Johan Maertens. Yes. The Onondaga has lots of chert.

@Bob- I am on the trail of the Bois Blanc Limestone again. Here is something new via Google Gemini: "The Bois Blanc Limestone is documented along East Amherst Street directly adjacent to McCarthy Park (running along the northern border of the park) and extending southwestward into the historic cut of the New York Central Railroad (located between Kensington and Morris Avenues).Because the Bois Blanc Formation in Western New York is notoriously sandy, thin ($< 4 \text{ feet}$ thick), and laterally discontinuous, it is frequently mapped together as a single unit with the overlying Middle Devonian Onondaga Limestone.Here is exactly where and how it is documented in that specific footprint:1. East Amherst Street Road Cut (McCarthy Park Boundary)The Exposure: Outcrops are documented directly on both the north and south sides of East Amherst Street right by McCarthy Park.  Geological Context: The bedrock here exposes the contact zone where the thin, sandy Devonian Bois Blanc sits disconformably over the Silurian Akron Dolostone. Directly to the east and northeast of the park lies the old Bennett Quarry (now the water-filled Amherst Quarry Lake), which mined the underlying Bertie and Akron Formations.  2. The New York Central Railroad CutThe Exposure: Just southwest of McCarthy Park, the old New York Central Railroad bed cuts deeply through the rock layers between Kensington Avenue and Morris Avenue.Geological Context: This classic local cut provides a clean vertical look at the stratigraphy. It has been heavily cited in regional literature (such as Buehler and Tesmer’s Geology of Erie County) for exposing the distinct, chert-heavy Edgecliff Member of the Onondaga Limestone resting directly on top of the sporadic, quartz-sand-bearing lenses of the Bois Blanc.Lithological Character in this ZoneIf you look closely at the roadside exposures or the nearby rail cut, the Bois Blanc is distinguished from the massive, dark-chert-loaded Onondaga Limestone above it by its high quartz sand content at the base (often referred to as the Springvale Sandstone member or interval) and its variable, thin layering. It represents the very beginning of the Devonian marine transgression in the Buffalo region, which is why it sits directly on top of the eroded Silurian surface."