Note on Cambrian Hyolithes Sandstones from Nuneaton

Abstract

The fossiliferous rocks belonging to the now famous Olenelluz Zone or basement Cambrian series were practically unrecognised by the majority of geologists ten years ago. They are now, however, known to have an almost universal extension on both continents north of the Equator, from India to Lapland in the Old World, and from Virginia to British Columbia in the New. Fossiliferous beds belonging to this Lower Cambrian zone have been recently found to occur in their proper place among the well-known Cambrian quartzites of Nuneaton and Atherstone, and the fossils, which are many of them well-preserved, include Hyolithes, Coleoloides, Kutorgina, Sccnella , etc., of the same type as those which occur in the lowest Cambrian rocks of Scandinavia and Newfoundland. The first indications of fossils in this Midland zone were detected by Dr Stacy Wilson in July 1895, and the actual fossil-bearing beds were subsequently followed and worked out in the field by myself. It is exceedingly interesting to find the same general succession of Cambrian rocks in the English Midlands as in all those regions in Britain and abroad, where the well-known Cambrian quartzite band forms the lowest bed of the Cambrian system. The fossil-bearing layers in the Midlands come in, as usual, between two sets of arenaceous strata, namely between a lower sandy series—the well-known Nuneaton or Lickey quartzite—and a higher and thinner arenaceous series, which appears to be the local equivalent of the well-known Salterella Grits and Hollybush Sandstone of other districts. It thus becomes more clearly evident