Marker Text: Seneca Rocks, an outstanding natural formation, rises over 900 feet high, overlooking the junction of the Seneca and Shawnee trails or Warriors' Path and the site of an Indian village with its legend of "Snow Bird", the Indian Princess. The almost perpendicular strata are of Tuscarora Sandstone of the Silurian Age.
Location: On U.S. Route 33 south of junction with WV Route 28. Erected by the West Virginia Historic Commission in 1963.
If you ever get the opportunity to travel across West Virginia on U.S. Route 33, particularly between Interstate 79 and the Virginia border you will witness some wonderful scenes in West Virginia. When you get to Pendleton County where Route 33 intersects with WV Route 28 you will come to Seneca Rocks. Stopping to view these rock formations is well worth the time. Seneca Rocks and nearby Champe Rocks (further north on Route 28) are the most imposing examples in eastern West Virginia of several formations of the white/gray Tuscarora quartzite. In the early morning mist the jagged outline of Seneca Rocks resembles the bony back of a giant dinosaur.
View of Seneca Rocks across from the road. Click any photo to enlarge.
Seneca Rocks is a prominent and visually striking formation rising nearly 900 feet above the confluence of Seneca Creek with the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River. The Rocks consist of a North and a South Peak, with a central notch between. This vast mountain of pale stone provides cliffs and lofty crags inviting exploration by birds, rock climbers, and agile visitors. Seneca Rocks area is part of the Monongahela National Forest.
The quartzite is approximately 250 feet thick here, located primarily on exposed ridges as caprock or exposed crags. Seneca Rocks is composed of the Tuscarora Sandstone composed of fine grains of sand that were laid down in the Silurian Period approximately 440 million years ago, in an extensive sand shoal at the edge of the ancient Iapetus Ocean, which once covered what is now West Virginia. The Tuscarora Sandstone has been compacted by great pressures into an erosion-resistant rock called a quartz arenite. Now this rock, once seashore sediments, forms high mountains along the entire length of the Appalachians.
