Sketch of the Geology of the Birmingham District: with Special
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3 13 SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGY OF THE BIRMINGHAM DISTRICT. WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE LONG EXCURSION OF J8g8. By PROFESSOR C. LAPWORTH, LL.D., F.R.S., WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY PROFESSOR W. W. WATTS, \I.A., SEC.G.S, AND W. JEROME HARRISON, FG.S. PLATES X, XI, XII. [Read july lsi, 1898.] CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTIO;'ol- I. PHYSIOGRAPHY. 3J3 II. GEOLOGY. .. 319 LOCAL ROCK FORMATIONS. .... .. 323 ARCH.£AN or PI<E-CAMBRIAN Rocks of Malvern, Wrekin, Barnt Green, Caldecote, and Charnwood 325 CAMBRIAN SVSTEM- Wrekin, Malvern, N uneaten, and Lower Lickey 335 SILVRIAN SYSTEM- Silurian in General, Malvern and Abberley, Central Areas, Lower Lickey, Walsall, Dudley, etc. 352 CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM- South Staffordshire Coalfield, Lower Lickey, East Warwickshire, and Severn Coalfields 362 PERMIAN SYSTEM 371 TRIASSIC SYSTEM . 377 POST-TRIASSIC FORMATIONS. 388 PETROLOGICAL KOTES, Nuneaton, Lickey, and South Staffordshire Coalfield ..... 389 ANCIENT GLACIERS of the Midland Counties . 400 HISTORY OF DISCOVERY in the Birmingham District 409 REFERENCES 41+ INTRODUCTION. I. Physiography. H E City of Birmingham lies almost exactly in the geographical T centre of England and Wales. Its distance from the three nearest seaports on the opposite sides of the island, Liverpool, Bristol and Boston, is about eighty-five miles in each case; and its distance from London, Hull, and Southampton is only a few miles more. The region which we denominate the" Birmingham District," is included within a radius of about thirty-five miles from the city. Within this radius we have not only the populous area of the Black Country, witn the large towns of Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall, Wednesbury, and West Bromwich; but also the more distant towns of Worcester, Malvern, Wellington, Stafford, AUGUST, 1898.1 25 l' L~O!j..t''yJ~ C;.> ~ ~be ~ ,?q,, s: ---.;:.... ~ ~~ "'~ , . p"'- ~ ;ro~. /' C"'t"N ~ . ~ . .Aard(w"~ · ,, ~ r- ~ .,..J/ill '-'~. ~~. ~2. 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Cl tr, o or o ><: =l: o ." .... ..., :t: t'l c:: ~: :;0 :::: Z s .... o ;" ,1., J' :r: ;,. :::: o 'fi >-: ::cn >-: (".> tJl -:'v I E ~ () /. or C :'vIAl' 2 . R OCKS O F T HE B IlUl IN GII.U! DIST R ICT . (Block ICNI by P rot , L ap" l'orl l,.) 3 16 C. LAPWORTH ON THE Burton-on-Trent, Leicester, Nuneaton, Warwick, Leamington, Tamworth, Coventry, and others. The main watershed of Southern Britain, which divides the rivers flowing eastwards into the German Ocean from those which flow westwards into the Irish Sea and the Bristol Channel, runs obliquely through the centre of the Birmingham District from north-west to south·east. This watershed enters upon the District near the town of Newport in Shropshire, crosses the south-western portion of the Black Country obliquely along the line of the Dudley Hills, and sweeps in a sinuous course across the Midland plain, south of Birmingham and north of Coventry, to the head waters of the Avon beyond Lutterworth. The land to the north and east of this line lies within the basin of the Trent; that to the west and south within the basin of the Severn. The Trent itself merely crosses the central parts of the northern section of the District. in its course [rem Stafford to Derby round the southern flanks of the Pennine Chain; but three of its tributaries are of special importance in the drainage of the Birmingham District. Of these the chief is the Tame, which rises in the Black Country, flows immediately north of Birming ham, and drains with its many affiuents all the land lying between the Black Country and Charnwood Forest. A second tributary, the Soar, drains the region lying east and south of the Forest, and a third, the Penk, the area lying north-west of the Black Country. The Severn enters the Birmingham District through the gorge of Coal brookdale, and its deep river valley, widening greatly as it is followed to the south, sweeps in a gentle curve through the western parts of the district, out of which the Severn passes between Worcester and the Malverns, on its course to the Bristol Channel. Several tributary streams, such as the Worf and the Stour, run in sub-parallel courses west of the Black Country, and empty their waters into the Severn; but the tributary which plays the most important part in the physiography of the land is the Warwickshire Avon. This drains the whole of the south-eastern division, and next, perhaps, to the Tame, may be said to be the characteristic river of the Birmingham District. It is the habit of geographers to speak of the Birmingham area as forming the heart of the so·called Great Midland Plain of England and Wales. But only in a general and relative sense is this description accurate; for, considered as a whole, the Bir mingham District is by no means plain-like. It may rather be defined as including those central and higher parts of the diversified Midland areas from which radiate the three chief river-plains of England-the plain of the Mersey and Dee to the north-west, the plain of the Trent and Humber to the north-east, and the plain of the Avon and Severn to the south-west. Generally speaking, the GEOLOGY OF THE BIRMINGHAM DISTRICT. 317 Birmingham District is a land of gentle heights and open valleys; its numberless, broad, mound-like hills are divided from each other by wide stream valleys, which are usually just deep enough to give point and character to the swelling grounds between. The watershed which divides the basins of the Severn and Trent, and forms what may be called the natural geographical axis of the district, is by no means a prominent feature in its physiography. Only for a few miles, about midway along its course, namely between Sedgley and Rubery, does it coincide with a chain of heights or even form a dominant feature in the landscape. Here, however, the watershed runs along the summits of a conspicuous range of hills -including those of Sedgley, the Wren's Nest, Dudley Castle Hill and Rowley-arangewhich crosses the South Staffordshire Coalfield obliquely from side to side, and is continued to the south-eastward along the rolling heights east of Halesowen into the wedge-like chain of the Lower Lickeys. Elsewhere the Midland watershed wanders vaguely and irregularly across the District from one broad swell to another, and nowhere does it rise to a greater height than some 800-900 ft. above the level of the sea. Along the south-eastern limits of the Birmingham District sweep the Jurassic scarps and terraces of the Cotteswold and Edge Hills. These gradually decline in height as they are followed to the north-east from Cheltenham, past Harbury and Rugby to Leicester and Loughborough; while just inside the district itself, and running parallel with these scarps, we have the soft river valleys of the Soar and the Avon. The former opens into the plain of the Trent, near Stoke and Nottingham, the latter merges into the plain of the Severn between Tewkesbury and Gloucester. Along the west of the district rise the broad uplands of Here ford and Shropshire, with the conspicuous points of the Wrekin to the north-west, the Clee and the Abberley Hills near the centre, and the long, narrow ridge of the Malverns to the south west. Shutting off this upland region from the Birmingham District proper runs the most striking and continuous of the Midland depressions-the long and deep groove formed hy the valley of the Severn. Into the north of the district project the southern spurs of the Pennine Range, round which swings in a long semicircle the broad river-valley of the Trent. To the extreme north-east the ground sweeps upwards from the rolling plains around into the bold and breezy upland region of Charnwood Forest, whose culminating point of Bardon Hill (902 ft.) overlooks the whole of the eastern half of the Birmingham District. Inside the Birmingham District itself the physiography is somewhat more complicated. The core of the western half of the district is formed by the South Staffordshire Coalfield, which is crossed by the conspicuous range of the Dudley C. LAPWORTH ON THE Hills, already mentioned. Except for this dividing ridge, the ground within the coalfield is more or less low and plain-like, and the countless mines, chimneys, straggling villages arid towns, usually all shrouded in a pall of smoke and steam, have conferred upon it the well deserved title of the" Black Country." This Black Country is surrounded by an almost continuous frame or border of high ground, the steeper scarps of which are turned inwards toward the centre of the coalfield, and the more gentle slopes outwards toward the open plains beyond.