On the Discovery of a Fossil-bearing Horizon in the ‘Permian’ Rocks of Hamstead Quarries, near Birmingham

Abstract

I. Introduction. (1) The Hamstead Locality. Near the village of Hamstead, 4 miles north-west of the centre of the city of Birmingham, the shafts of the Hamstead Colliery are sunk in the broad outcrop of Midland Red Rocks which fringe the south-eastern edge of the South Staffordshire Coalfield, and are classed and coloured upon the original maps of H.M. Geological Survey as ‘Permian.’ The colliery-shafts are carried down through the lower rocks of this so-called ‘Permian’ into productive Coal Measures below, which are the underground continuation of those of the visible South Staffordshire Coalfield, the well-known ‘Thick Coal’ itself being worked in this colliery. The red rocks cut through in the colliery-shafts between the surface of the country and the grey productive Coal Measures below are collectively referred to in the present paper—for the sake of convenience—under the title of the Hamstead Colliery Series. The strata of the Colliery Series rise to the outcrop west of the colliery for a distance of about 2 miles, until they are cut off by the well-known Eastern Boundary-Fault of the South Staffordshire Coalfield, which there limits the ‘Permian’ outcrop in the western direction. A short distance east of the colliery, the eastern limit of the ‘Permian’ outcrop is reached, and is succeeded by the outcrop of the Trias. In the narrow band of ‘Permian’ ground which intervenes between the colliery and the Triassic boundary-line, the local remainder of the so-called ‘Permian’ crops out. Its strata follow conformably upon those of the Hamstead-Colliery Series