Summaries of Addresses of Presidents of Sections: Geology of the Coal Measures

Abstract

IN his address to Section C (Geology) on “A Correlation of Structures in the Coalfields of the Midland Province”, Prof. W. G. Fearnsides directs attention to the wealth of three-dimensional information concerning beds of sediment, and the shape, size and distribution of folds and normal faults, which awaits interpretation in the Midland coalfields. He points out the value of exact knowledge of structure to those who plan the extension of mining in areas where coal measures lie concealed. He reviews the Carboniferous stratigraphy of the Midland province a region naturally defined by the ring of nearmost outcrops of Lower Pal¦ozoic rocks, and lying within a circle of sixty-mile radius centred near Buxton to demonstrate that, almost to the end of the Upper Carboniferous period, the area was behaving as a unit geosynclinal trough. It was in this trough that the Midland coal measure sediments were accommodated, and after each of its many pulsations of regional depression it was filled brim-full with sediment on which successive coal seams grew. The amplitude of geosynclinal sinking is considered zone by zone, and it is noted that 12,000 ft. of deposits in the central area between Manchester and the Peak lose more than half their thickness within fifty miles in all the districts around. The wedging out becomes more rapid towards the edges of the basin.