A BORING THROUGH EDALE SHALES TO CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE AND PILLOW LAVAS, AT HOPE CEMENT WORKS, NEAR CASTLETON, DERBYSHIRE

Abstract

Introduction. The Hope Cement Works borehole, which is the subject of this communication, was drilled during the winter and spring of 1927–28, 15 inches in diameter, to a depth of 500 feet, and was designed to provide artesian water from Carboniferous Limestone underneath Edale Shales, for Messrs. G. and T. Earle’s Hope Cement Works, then in course of construction. Unfortunately, although partings in the Edale Shale Series deliver water which overflows at surface continuously, the yield of water from them is insufficient, and under the local conditions discovered the Carboniferous Limestone formation must be accounted dry. As a works’ supply, therefore, the borehole was abandoned in favour of a dug shaft and collecting galleries in limestone nearer the surface at another site. The place of the borehole adjoins the site of the old Salter Barn, 575 feet O.D., in the marshy flat at the foot of the upstanding limestone hill of Nunlow, near a ditch which drains eastward by Meadow House to the Bradwell Brook at Brough. It is within 100 yards north-east of the canteen and office buildings of the Cement Works, one-quarter of a mile east of the mouth of Pindale, and three-quarters of a mile S.15°W. from Hope Church. Geologically the main features of the record are the unexpected thickness of black shales proved (250 ft.), beneath beds which carry Eumorphoceras bisulcatum Girty and Cravenoceras ; the brecciated character of some of the beds of limestone; and the character and condition of the volcanic products—tuffs and ...