Kinzers Formation

The Kinzers Formation is a geologic formation in Pennsylvania. It preserves fossils dating back to the Cambrian Period.

The base of the Kinzers Formation is primarily a dark-brown shale. The middle is a gray and white spotted limestone and, locally, marble having irregular partings. The top is a sandy limestone which weathers to a fine-grained, friable, porous, sandy mass.

Type section
Named from exposures at a railroad cut at Kinzers, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Other outcrops
The Kinzers overlies the Vintage Dolomite at the type section of the Vintage at a railroad cut at Vintage, Pennsylvania.

High quality fossil specimens (Lagerstätte) were obtained from the Noah Getz Quarry, one mile north of Rohrerstown, Pennsylvania, but the quarry location is overgrown and disturbed by development. The fossils are from the Emigsville Member, and include the trilobite Olenellus thompsoni, the radiodont Lenisicaris pennsylvanica, the bivalve Tuzoia getzi, and the green algae Margaretia dorus.

The sponge Hazelia walcotti has been found in the Kinzers. It is one of few sponges known from the Cambrian period of North America.