It is a clayey, calcareous, shelly, glauconitic (10-20 percent) silt. Its colors range from greenish-gray and gray-green to brownish-gray and light gray. It is rich in calcareous and siliceous microfossils. The matrix mineralogy shows a high calcite component, except in the lower part of the formation which is within a calcite dissolution interval. In the lower half of the formation quartz is predominant.
Granitic gneiss with swirling leucosomes and irregular biotite-rich restite layers is the dominant lithology and constitutes approximately 75 to 80 percent of the exposed rocks. The remaining 20 to 25 percent comprises hornblende-biotite gneiss, amphibolite with or without pyroxene, and pegmatite. Granitic gneiss is composed of quartz, plagioclase, biotite, and microcline. Minor and accessory minerals are garnet, muscovite, magnetite, ilmenite, sphene, apatite, and zircon. The hornblende gneiss contains plagioclase, quartz, hornblende, and biotite with/without orthopyroxene. Accessory minerals are garnet, muscovite, clinozoisite, perthitic orthoclase, iron-titanium oxides, sphene, and apatite. Amphibolites are composed of subequal amounts of hornblende and plagioclase with minor quartz, biotite, clinopyroxene, and orthopyroxene.
In Delaware, predominantly an impure quartzite and garnet-sillimanite-biotite-microcline schist. Major minerals include microcline, quartz, and biotite with minor plagioclase, and garnet. Muscovite and sillimanite vary with metamorphic grade. Accessory minerals are iron-titanium oxides, zircon, sphene, and apatite. Microcline is an essential constituent of the quartzites and schists and serves to distinguish the Setters rocks from the plagioclase-rich schists and gneisses of the Wissahickon Formation.
Interlayered psammitic and pelitic gneiss with amphibolite. Psammitic gneiss is a medium- to fine-grained biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss with or without small garnets. Contacts with pelitic gneiss are gradational. Pelitic gneiss is medium- to coarse-grained garnet-sillimanite-biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss. Unit has a streaked or flasered appearance owing to the segregation of garnet-sillimanite-biotite stringers that surround lenses of quartz and feldspar. Throughout, layers of fine to medium-grained amphibolite composed of plagioclase and hornblende, several inches to <30 feet thick or as large massive bodies, are in sharp contact with the psammitic and pelitic gneisses. An attempt has been made to show some of the amphibolites mappable at the scale of the map. Granitic pegmatite is ubiquitous and occurs at all scales. Pyroxene bearing quartzite with garnet occurs locally near the contact with the Wilmington Complex. An ultramafic lens composed of cumulus layers of serpentinized peridotite, metapyroxenite, and metagabbro occurs near Hoopes Reservoir. The ultramafic lens may be correlative with the Baltimore Mafic Complex.
Predominantly fine- to coarse-grained amphibolites and quartz amphibolites with minor felsic rocks, probably metavolcanic. Major minerals are amphibole and plagioclase with or without pyroxene and/or quartz. Amphibole may be hornblende, cummingtonite, gedrite, and/or anthophyllite. Halos of plagioclase and quartz around porphyroblasts of magnetite, orthopyroxene, and garnet are common features.