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
Tables
Table 3.1 Main geological features of the marine Permian GCR sites in the Durham Province of the English Zechstein
Durham Province | ||
Site | Interest | |
Cycle 3 | ||
Seaham Formation | Seaham | Type section; complex calcite concretions; Calcinema; crinkled algal stromatolites; foundered strata |
Blackhalls Rocks | Calcite concretions; foundered, partly collapse-brecciated | |
Cycle 2 | ||
Seaham Residue (of Fordon Evaporites) | Seaham | Type section; distinctive lithology; plastic deformation; dedolomites |
Blackhalls Rocks | Incidental occurrence | |
Roker Dolomite Formation | Seaham | Typical lithology passing up to dedolomitized brecciated rock at top |
Blackhalls Rocks | Typical lithology | |
Ryhope Cutting
(part of Tunstall Hills south) |
Partly dedolomitized collapse-breccia with infiltrated cavity-fill | |
Hawthorn Quarry | Slightly atypical lithology, partly dedolomitized; collapse-brecciated in east | |
Concretionary
Limestone Formation |
Fulwell Hills quarries | Bizarre calcite concretions; Fulwell Fish-bed and other laminites; foundered strata |
Trow Point to north end of Marsden Bay, South Shields | Dedolomitized collapse-breccias with infiltrated cavity-fill | |
Marsden Bay, South Shields | Interbedded laminated and turbiditic dolomitized slope carbonate mudstones to grainstones; calcite concretions; dedolomites; foundered strata and breccia-gashes | |
Cycle 1 | ||
Residue of
Hartlepool Anhydrite |
Trow Point to Frenchman's Bay, South Shields | Typical evaporite-dissolution residue underlying collapse-breccias |
Ryhope Cutting
(part of Tlinstall Hills south) |
Near-reef evaporite-dissolution residue; evidence of past plastic flow | |
?Ford Formation, | Blackhalls Rocks, | Coarse conglomerate of rolled blocks of dolomitized reef |
Heselden Dene Stromatolite Biostrome | Hawthorn Quarry | boundstone overlain by dolomitized algal laminites with spectacularly large domes |
Ford Formation, Trow Point Bed | Trow Point | Type section of Trow Point Bed; a distinctive thin unit of marine oncoids, peloids and columnar stromatolites, partly dedolomitized |
Ford Formation, shelf-edge reef facies | Claxheugh Rock,
Cutting and Ford Quarry, Hawthorn Quarry, Humbledon Hill Quarry, Hylton Castle Cutting, Stony Cut (Cold Hesledon), Tunstall Hills (N and S), Horden Quarry |
Massive mainly dolomitized fossiliferous reef boundstone, comprising several sub-facies: reef-base at Claxheugh Rock and Humbledon Hill; basal coquina at Tunstall Hills (N); reef-core at Claxheugh Rock, Cutting and Ford Quarry, Hylton Castle, Humbledon Hill and Tunstall Hills (N and S); reef-backreef contact at Ford Quarry; reef-flat at Hawthorn Quarry and Stony Cut; reef talus at Tunstall Hills (S); reef fissures at Tunstall Hills (N); reef crest at Ford Quarry, Horden Quarry and Stony Cut; reef-top erosion surface at Hawthorn Quarry. Humbledon Hill Quarry and Tunstall Hills are renowned historical faunal sites |
Ford Formation, backreef facies | Claxheugh (Ford) Cutting and Ford Quarry | Reef-backreef contact; sparingly fossiliferous dolomitized mudstone/wackestone with allochthonous slide-blocks or olistoliths (best seen in cutting) |
Gilleylaw Plantation Quarry, Silksworth | Dolomitized ooid grainstones overlain by shelly algal-bryozoan patch-reef; coarse oncoids and lamellar stromatolites at top | |
Trimdon Grange Quarry, Trimdon | Typical cross-laminated shallow-water ooid grainstones, extensively replaced by calcite after secondary ?anhydrite; bioturbated | |
Raisby Formation | Raisby Quarries | Type locality; thick primary limestones; diagenetic breccia; mineralized |
Dawson's Plantation Quarry | Debris flow near base of formation; typical lithology; spatulate listric joints and fractures | |
High Moorsley Quarry | Typical lithology with thin debris flow and evidence of large-scale downslope sediment sliding; mineralized; cambered (Quaternary feature) | |
Trow Point | Typical lithology; much evidence of bioturbation; major submarine slide-plane overlain by debris flow with exceptionally large slide-blocks (olistoliths) | |
Marl Slate | Claxheugh Rock, Frenchman's Bay | Typical lithology; was locally fluidized and injected downwards into fissures; partly removed by submarine sliding |
Raisby Quarries | Typical lithology; thins against crest of ridge in Basal Permian Sands | |
Basal Permian Sands ',mainly pre-Cycle 1) | Claxheugh Rock, Frenchman's Bay, Raisby Quarries | Typical lithology; top involved in submarine slide-breccia at Claxheugh Rock; remains of fluidized Marl Slate in fissures at Claxheugh Rock; forms ridge in floor of Raisby Quarry and at head of Frenchman's Bay |
Table 4.1 Main geological features of the marine Permian GCR sites in the Yorkshire Province of the English Zechstein.
Yorkshire Province | ||
Site | Interest | |
Cycle 1 / Cycle 2 | ||
 Ellington Formation | River Ure Cliff, Ripon | The only permanent surface exposure of Permian evaporites in north-east England; much gypsum after anhydrite, partly strongly internally folded; many satin-spar veins; foundered limestones of Brotherton Formation (Cycle 3) with Calcinema |
Cycle 1 | ||
Cadeby Formation (Sprotbrough Member), transitional to Edlington Formation | Quarry Moor, Ripon | Unevenly interbedded algal-laminated dedolomitized ooid grainstones and evaporite dissolution residues; expansion structures; algal-laminated dolomite ooid grainstones |
Sprotbrough Member on Wetherby Member | Micklefield Quarry, New Micklefield | Typical dolomitized ooid grainstones of sandwave facies rests on full sequence of peritidal Hampole Beds; fenestral ('birds' eye') fabric; Hampole Discontinuity |
Cadeby Quarry, Cadeby | Typical dolomitized ooid grainstones of sandwave facies rests on atypically thick Hampole Beds; Hampole Discontinuity with relief of 3 m+; Wetherby Member with unusually tall patch-reefs and thick dolomite domed algal laminites | |
Wetherby Member | Wood Lee Common, Maltby | Selectively eroded dolomitized bryozoan patch-reefs form tors on grassy slope |
South Elmsall Quarry | Dolomitized bryozoan–algal patch-reef in peloidal and oncoidal shelf grainstones; stromatolite domes | |
Ashfield Brick-clay Pit, Conisbrough | Dolomitized bryozoan patch-reef in dolomitized ooid grainstones, on bedded skeletal grainstones and rudstones (coquinas), on dolomitic siliciclastic mudstones | |
Newsome Bridge Quarry, North Deighton | Dolomitized inferred patch-reef in peloidal and oncoidal shelf grainstones lies on eminence in Carboniferous Permian unconformity; rock litter | |
Wetherby Member on Basal Permian Sands | Bilham Quarry | Basal shelf dolomite mudstones/wackestones of the Cadeby Formation on incoherent marine-redistributed aeolian sand-rock |
Ashfield Brick-clay Pit, Conisbrough | Basal dolomitic siliciclastic mudstones on atypically pebbly red friable sandstone |