Notes on the Geology of Clitheroe and Pendle Hill

Abstract

The Geological Bibliography of this district is not extensive. Parts are alluded to in Phillips’s “Geology of Yorkshire.” More information is given in the “Geological Survey Memoirs, Burnley Coalfield,” 1875. The Glaciation of the district was treated of in Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., 1872, “On the Evidence for the Ice Sheet in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Westmorland,” by the writer of these notes. The Geology is contained in “Geological Survey, One-Inch, Sheet 92, S.W.” (New Series, Sheet 68). This may be had coloured for solid rocks only, or with the overlying Drift, the former giving a much better idea of the arrangement of the rocks than the latter. A section across Pendle is shown in “Horizontal Sections, Sheet 86.” The Sections of the Carboniferous Series from the Ribble at Clitheroe to the top of Pendle give, on the whole, a very good idea of the type of rocks which prevails in the area south of the Craven Faults, and indeed spreads at least as far as Derbyshire. Clitheroe abounds in limestone hills, and is much quarried, and we get there two groups:— ( a .) The Black Limestones, very well bedded, dark, and bituminous, showing an exceedingly regular strike and crop; and above them ( b .) The White Limestones of Salt Hill, Worsa, Gerna, which form rather protuberances, swelling mounds of less distinct bedding, but crammed with well-preserved fossils. These “knolls” are regarded by the writer as owing their from to the original growth of deposition; but Mr. J.E. Marr, F.R.S., attributes not their ...