On some new Permian fossils from the Magnesian Limestone near Sunderland

Abstract

Summary Practically all the species of invertebrates in the Permian of England had been discovered before 1850, almost the only exception being the record of Chonetes davidsoni in 1864, from the Lower Magnesian Limestone at Hartley's Quarry west of Sunderland. The present paper deals with some new occurrences in these beds rather farther to the west, at Ford Quarry, Claxheugh, 2 miles west of Sunderland. They include two new species of Chonetes , one of which resembles a Spitsbergen form, a Camarophoria apparently identical with C. purdoni of the Russian and Himalayan Permian, and at least two lamellibranchs with Russian and German affinities. The early collectors paid little attention to the vertical or lateral distribution of their fossils; in the middle beds most of the fauna is crowded in a line of reef knolls in which the species die out progressively upwards. Among other localities, the classical knoll of Humbleton Hill has been re-examined, and at the top, facing west, a dolomite with the impoverished fauna, only three genera of Brachiopoda, has been found. The thrusts and other abnormal junctions of the Permian of North-East Durham have been re-investigated and their possible connexion with solution of sulphates and with faunal and reef-knoll distribution is mentioned.