Smith, D.B. 1995. Marine Permian of England. Geological Conservation Review Series No. 8. JNCC, Peterborough, ISBN 0412 61080 9. The original source material for these web pages has been made available by the JNCC under the Open Government Licence 3.0. Full details in the JNCC Open Data Policy
Chapter 2 North-west England
Introduction
Marine Permian strata in north-west England are reasonably well known from widely scattered borehole data and from temporary exposures, but good permanent surface exposures are extremely rare and are mainly of strata low in the Permian marine sequence. Only one of these exposures the sea cliff backing Barrowmouth Beach at Saltom Bay, West Cumbria — has been selected as a GCR site and the documentation and discussion of this imposing exposure therefore forms almost all of this brief chapter. The general geological background is discussed in Chapter 1.
Evidence relating the deposits of the Bakevellia Sea to those of the Zechstein Sea is scanty, but the faunal assemblage of the Saltom Dolomite is nevertheless strikingly similar to that in comparable marginal parts of the Cadeby Formation in the Yorkshire Province and approximate correlation is indicated; amongst GCR sites in the Yorkshire Province, that at Ashfield Brick-clay Pits (Conisbrough, Chapter 4) is probably the closest faunal and sedimentological match with the Saltom Dolomite of Saltom Bay.