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I.—The Coniston Limestone Series

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

J. E. Mark
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Extract

It has long been known that the Coniston Limestone Series of the English Lake District and surrounding areas is separable into minor divisions. As a knowledge of these will prove useful in settling the question as to the exact relation between the Couiston Limestone beds and the underlying rocks, no apology seems needed for giving a detailed account of the rocks of this series.

The literature of the subject is extensive, but we fortunately possess an excellent bibliography of works referring to the geology of the Lake District, in the appendix supplied by Mr. Whitaker to the late Mr. Ward's Memoir on the Geology of the Northern Half of the English Lake District.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , March 1892 , pp. 97 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1892

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References

page 104 note 1 Since writing the above I have received the Survey Memoir of Quarter-Sheet 97 N.W. The contemporaneous volcanic series of Backside Beck and Wandale qccurs at a higher horizon than that of any of the contemporaneous lavas hitherto detected in other parts of the district, with the possible exception of that running from Kentmere to Shap, and separating the Stile End Limestone from the Applethwaite Beds. It seems to occur high up in the Sleddale Group, and it will be remembered that contemporaneous volcanic ashes are found at the very summit of this group in the Coniston area. Mr. Strahan records the occurrence of a grit in the Ashgill Shales on a position corresponding to that of the above-mentioned calcareous grit, both in Taiths Gill and Birk's Field Gill.

The thickness of the Ashgill Shales recorded in Fairy Gill is exceptional.

page 106 note 1 It may be remarked that sufficient proof has not been offered as to the distinctness of the Stile End Beds from the Corona Beds of the Cross Fell area. The somewhat meagre list of Stile End fossils previously given does not bring out the marked contrast between these beds and those of the Roman Fell Group. Not only, is the peculiar fauna of the Corona Beds entirely absent from the Stile End deposit (and fossils, though ill-preserved and belonging to few species, are very abundant at Stile End), but the Stile End rocks are crowded with casts of Lindstraimia, both in the region where the Yarlside rhyolite separates them from the Applethwaite Beds, and in the region further west. No Lindstrcemia has yet been detected in the Eoman Fell Beds. In the neighbourhood of Coniston the Stile End Beds contain numerous fossils, which, as is usual with the beds of this series, are preserved as casts only, but fragments of several fossils generically identical with those of the Applethwaite Beds are easily discoverable, and, as far as one can judge, they are also specifically identical. Though it is just possible, therefore, that these Stile. End Beds are actually representatives of the Roman Fell Group, all the evidence points to their being newer.

page 107 note 1 In this table, whilst the lava-flows and more prominent ashes are inserted, no attempt is made to indicate the finer volcanic material mixed with the Calcareous muds of many of the beds of the Roman Fell and Sleddale Groups.