On the Occurence of Limestone of the Lower Carboniferous Series in the Cannock-Chase Portion of the South Staffordshire Coalfield

Abstract

The South Staffordshire Coalfield embraces a district 26 miles in length, and includes the southern portion of Staffordshire as well as portions of Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Shropshire. Over the southern portion of this coalfield the Coal-Measures rest directly upon the Silurian limestone. This is known to be the case as far north as the Great Bentley Fault, north of which a deep sinking and borehole at No. 2 pit, Cannock-Chase Colliery, proved a thickness of 1212 feet of Coal-Measures below the Deep Coal-Seam, succeeded by 102 feet of limestone-rock, said to be Silurian limestone. It has been thought up to the present time, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, that the Lower Carboniferous rocks are altogether wanting in this area. Jukes, in his Geological Survey Memoir on the South Staffordshire Coalfield, 2nd ed. (1859) p. xii, says:— ‘These vast formations of Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous Limestone (to say nothing of the lower part of the Coal-Measure Series or Millstone Grit) are altogether absent in South Staffordshire, neither is there the slightest reason for supposing that any part of them ever existed in that district.’ Dr. Charles Lapworth & Mr. A. Sopwith, in Part III of the Report of the Royal Commission on Coal-Supplies, published in 1905, make the following statement:— ‘Neither Carboniferous Limestone nor Millstone Grit are known to occur within the limits of the South Staffordshire Coalfield. The oldest beds yet recognized are certain Ganister-like strata associated with the deepest Coal-Measures in the borings in