Note on a Conglomerate near Melmerby (Cumberland)

Abstract

As the task of distinguishing ancient glacial deposits from those which have received structures resulting from earth-movements is one of considerable interest to the geologist at the present time, it may be worth while to record the occurrence of conglomeratic deposits in England which show indubitable effects of the action of earth-movement, not only on the included pebbles, but also on the upper surface of one of the deposits. The section to be described is seen in a fell-lane west of Rampsmire Sike, about a mile east-south-east of the village of Melmerby, which is itself about 5½ miles north-east of Penrith. The deposits occur between the Carboniferous rocks and the Lower Palaeozoic slates; they are spoken of as ‘Basement-beds’ and referred to the Carboniferous system on the Geological Survey map (New Series, Sheet 24), though represented with the chocolate colour used for Devonian rocks. There is little doubt that these deposits are homotaxial with those of the neighbourhood of Sedbergh, of the foot of Ullswater, and elsewhere in and around the Lake District, which have been described in the Geological Survey memoirs. As the conglomerates of the Carboniferous system containing small quartz-pebbles, which are low down in that system, appear to rest upon them unconformably, I see no reason why the underlying conglomerates should not be representatives of the Old Red Sandstone, with which they were originally compared. In ascending the fell-lane from a ford at the bottom oftheopen fe]l, the ‘Skiddaw Slates’ are seen in a much shattered condition,