A series of thirteen preliminary hand-drawn 7.5-minute quadrangle, 1:24,000 scale northeast Pennsylvania bedrock geologic maps, produced between 1997 and 2002, were recently digitized and published as part of the ongoing effort from the Pennsylvania Geological Survey to release legacy unpublished data. These maps were originally part of the USGS EDMAP and STATEMAP grant programs, covering the historically significant Northern Anthracite coal field of Pennsylvania. Mapping spans portions of Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Susquehanna, and Wayne Counties and encompasses the entire Northern Anthracite field. They were digitized “as is”, with only minor cartographic adjustments applied to the new vector data, in order keep the digital map product as true to the original maps as possible. Due to this, there is limited cohesion from map to map, where major features and contacts may not be continuous across borders.

All maps, at a minimum, contained geologic contacts for units that span from Devonian (oldest unit being the Hamilton Group) to Pennsylvanian (youngest unit being the Llewellyn Formation) in age, as well as structural point measurements. Coal crop lines are detailed in many of the maps within the footprint of the Pennsylvanian Llewellyn formation. In total, nine of the maps had coal crop lines and ten included structural features (fold hinge lines).  The detail of coal crop lines varied from quadrangle to quadrangle, as did the structural features (e.g., Nanticoke, Pittston, and Schickshinny quadrangles showed minor folds whereas most others just showed only major fold structures). Some quadrangles contained unique features (e.g., magnetic survey line in the Pittston Quadrangle) but at their core, they contained the basic essential information that is expected of bedrock geological maps, with varying degrees of detail.

Although this data is far from a polished, final map product, the goal is to disseminate previously unpublished data that are valuable to a variety of stakeholders, regardless of the ultimate state of completeness that they may have. This allows for the opportunity to get these data to get into the hands individuals that may be able to use it as supplemental information that otherwise would be difficult to access and/or have an awareness of its existence.