The Mill Creek, Mountain Lake, and Peters Mountain Wilderness Study Areas comprise about 8200 ha of steep wooded slopes in the Jefferson National Forest in west central Virginia and adjacent West Virginia. Mill Creek area contains about 1800 ha and Peters Mountain area about 1600 ha in Giles County, Va. Mountain Lake area contains about 3000 ha in Giles County, a little more than 570 ha in Craig County, Va., and nearly 1230 ha in Monroe County, W. Va. A small part of each study area is privately owned-- about 5 percent of Mill Creek, 20 percent of Mountain Lake and 2 percent of Peters Mountain. The U.S. Forest Service owns the mineral rights on all the Government land except for about 162 ha in the Peters Mountain arca. The three study areas are in the western part of the Valley and Ridge physiographic province and are therefore part of the folded Appalachians, which contain deformed sedimentary rocks of Paleozoic age. The same elastic marine and non—marine sedimentary rock formations ranging in age from Late Ordovician to Middle Devonian are exposed throughout the region. Sandstones of the Juniata, Tuscarora, and Keefer Formations form cliffs, ridges and steep dip slopes. The distinctive hematitic sandstone beds of the Rose Hill Formation cover any dip slopes with red sandstone blocks. Other formations are less well exposed and form lower slopes and valleys.
