IX. On the fossil floras of the Wyre Forest, with special reference to the geology of the coalfield and its relationships to the neighbouring coal measure areas

Abstract

In the Western Midlands of England and along the Welsh Borderland a series of coalfields occurs parallel to the course of the River Severn, and, for the most part, situated to the West of that river. The main links in this chain begin in the North with the Shrewsbury coalfield. Next follows the Le Botwood area, then Coalbrookdale and the Wyre Forest. Further still to the South is the little coalfield of Newent in Gloucestershire. This line terminates in the Forest of Dean and Bristol coalfields. In addition, a few detached areas of coal measures, of which the Clee Hills are the most important, lie further to the West. To the North of Shrewsbury, the line is continued by the Denbighshire (Wrexham) and the Flintshire coalfields, both situated for the most part to the West of the Dee. There is little doubt that the coalfields lying along this line, roughly North and South, are not all related to one another, either stratigraphically or tectonically. We are concerned here with the fields beginning with the Shrewsbury and ending with the Newent areas, and more especially with that of the Wyre Forest. We may at once exclude from primary consideration the Forest of Dean and Bristol fields in the South, and the Dee Valley coalfields in the North, as being quite unrelated, at least stratigraphically, to the Wyre Forest.