The construction of a bedrock geology model for the UK: UK3D_v2015. Geology and Regional Geophysics and Energy and Waste Programmes BGS Open Report OR/15/069 BRITISH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY GEOLOGY AND REGIONAL GEOPHYSICS AND ENERGY AND WASTE PROGRAMMES BGS OPEN REPORT OR/15/069 The construction of a bedrock geology model for the UK: UK3D_v2015 The National Grid and other Ordnance Survey data © Crown Copyright and database rights 2015 are used with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s C.N. Waters, R. L. Terrington, M. R. Cooper, R. J. Raine & S. Stationery Office. Thorpe Licence No: 100021290 . Keywords: 3D Model, Cross- sections, bedrock geology, United Kingdom Front cover The UK3D_v2015 bedrock model Frontispiece The coded borehole sticks that inform the UK3D_v2015 model Bibliographical reference WATERS, C. N. TERRINGTON, R., COOPER, M. R., RAINE, R. B. & THORPE, S. 2015. The construction of a bedrock geology model for the UK: UK3D_v2015. British Geological Survey Report, OR/15/069 22pp. Copyright in materials derived from the British Geological Survey’s work is owned by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and/or the authority that commissioned the work. You may not copy or adapt this publication without first obtaining permission. Contact the BGS Intellectual Property Rights Section, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, e-mail [email protected]. You may quote extracts of a reasonable length without prior permission, provided a full acknowledgement is given of the source of the extract. Maps and diagrams in this book use topography based on Ordnance Survey mapping. © NERC 2015. 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It also explains the development of the metadata underpinning the model and therefore supports use and understanding of UK3D. The pre-existing BGS GB3D model provided the only nationally consistent representation of the bedrock geology of Great Britain to depths of at least 1 km. The latest version of this model was released in 2014 as the GB3D_v2014 and accompanying report (Mathers et al. 2014b). However, the existing GB3D_v2014 model lacked equivalent scale presentation of a fence diagram model for Northern Ireland. It was recognised that in order to provide comparable geological information across the United Kingdom it was necessary to upgrade the model to a UK3D fence diagram model incorporating Northern Ireland, with rigorous peer review performed to enable an enhanced dataset. 2 OR/15/069Draft 1.1 Last modified: 2016/02/09 08:50 The objective of this study was therefore to further develop the GB3D model, outlined by Mathers et al. (2014a and b), into a UK3D model by the incorporation of 36 deep boreholes and a framework of 15 cross-sections for Northern Ireland. The appropriate applications for the revised model are for geoscience communication and education to illustrate the national and regional bedrock geology of the United Kingdom to a depth of at least 1 km with an intended resolution of use in the 1:250 000 to 1:1 million scale range. Limitations inherent in the model preclude such applications as detailed geological assessments, resource-reserve estimation and exploration, and any representation or use outside the intended resolution range. The new model produced by this study UK3D_v2015 supersedes the earlier 2014 version for England and Wales, for which areas of the fence diagrams remain the same. The Scottish portion of the model remains unchanged from the earlier 2012 version. The new dataset is a wholly owned BGS product and as with its forerunners it is freely available from the BGS website http://bgs.ac.uk as downloads in a variety of formats. 1 Background to the study The pre-existing GB3D model provided the only nationally consistent representation of the bedrock geology of Great Britain to depths of at least 1 km. The latest version of this model was released in 2014 as the GB3D_v2014 and accompanying report (Mathers et al. 2014b). However, the existing GB3D_v2014 model lacked equivalent scale presentation of a fence diagram model for Northern Ireland. It was recognised that in order to provide comparable geological information across the United Kingdom it was necessary to upgrade the model to a UK3D_v2015 fence diagram model incorporating Northern Ireland, with rigorous peer review performed to enable an enhanced dataset. The scope of this latest phase of work was as follows: develop revisions to the national Geological Vertical Section (GVS), the summary of the geological succession displayed in the model, to incorporate