A Palaeogeological Map of the Lower Palaeozoic Floor below the cover of Upper Devonian, Carboniferous and Later Formations : with inferred and speculative reconstructions of Lower Palaeozoic and Precambrian outcrops in adjacent areas

Abstract

Abstract It is four years since Professor Wills produced his outstanding pre‐Permian Palaeogeological Map of England and Wales, published by this Society with an explanatory memoir and now to be found on the walls of many working offices across the country. He was then 89 and it was assumed that this was his final production, a remarkable achievement in the face of great physical frailty. Nevertheless he immediately moved on to a map of a stratigraphically deeper level — a palaeogeological map of the rocks following the Caledonian movements and the subsequent erosion, the surface of which would be exposed by the removal of Upper Devonian and later strata. This was completed and printed in 1975, and Wills began the equally complex task of writing an accompanying memoir to explain the way he had interpreted and applied the varied evidence of the deep structure. This process however led him to undertake still another map, that of the pre‐Devonian rocks of a belt extending from East Anglia to South Wales, which has been completed this year. These two maps form the coloured plates accompanying this memoir. The memoir is also illustrated by a map of the Basal Elements, and by three Phanerozoic Time Scale sections, which illustrate the point which Wills has made before — that in the dominantly shelf environment of Britain the stratigraphical record is largely incomplete, with the lacunae at least comparable in time terms to the periods represented by sediments. This publication, then, represents the further remarkable achievement of a man of 93 (— “and a half”, as he emphasises — he feels that months count now), working in a country study without technical support, his activity sharply limited by eye trouble and by a heart condition. It would have been a notable production for a fit man half his age. Both economic and academic geologists are already deeply indebted to Wills for his map of the pre‐Permian surface; these further compilations add more organised data and more food for thought about the past history and deep structure of Britain.