Evidence of Glacial action near Leeds

Abstract

The object of this paper on the above subject is to direct the attention of geologists and others to some good sections recently exposed to view in the Meanwood valley. For many years a quarry has been worked by Mr. B. Rowley in the ganister beds of the lower carboniferous shales and grits at Headingley, in the valley below Meanwood. This quarry is in rather an uncommon position for such excavations, in so much as it lies in the valley bottom and not on the hill side as is usual in quarrying in this district. The stone only becomes visible when the superincumbent material is removed by excavating. The rock appears to the eye to be fairly horizontal, but there is a dip to the S.E. which causes the rock to come to the surface within three or four hundred yards from the quarry. A thin bed of coal is seen to underlie the upper bed of ganister. Resting immediately on the rock is a bed of shale 8 feet thick, black and friable in its lower portions, but becoming yellow and softer in its upper beds. This shale is overlaid by a true glacial moraine composed of sandy clay with patches of sand, irregular in shape, and which occur in “pockets” in the clay. The sand in these patches is not bedded horizontally, but often inclined at a considerable angle. The moraine material contains great quantities of sub-angular blocks of grit rock of all sizes, from 2 feet 6 ...