VII. Notes on the Stratigraphy of the Marske Quarry

Abstract

A range of elevated ground starts from the sea-coast in the lofty cliffs of Huntcliff and Boulby, and, striking westwards, divides into two lines: the northern forming the outlying hills of Upleathan and Eston, the southern passing to the south of the great inlet in which the town of Guisborough lies, where it forms that part of the Cleveland Hills known as Guisborough Moor. The Marske Quarry is situated on the northern face of the Upleatham Outlier, about a mile from the village of Marske-by-the-Sea. The quarry has not been worked for the last twenty years, and parts of it are inaccessible through fallen rubbish. Its altitude above sea-level is 500 feet. The complete succession of the Lower Oolites in Yorkshire tabulated by Fox-Strangways is as follows, in descending order:— Cornbrash. Upper Estuarine Series. Grey Limestone Series. Middle Estuarine Series. Millepore Bed. Lower Estuarine Series, with Ellerbeck Bed. The sequence of the beds in the Marske Quarry, from careful measurements taken of the best-exposed section, is as follows:— Beneath this lowermost bed lies the Dogger. This latter deposit, so useful for demarcation between the Lias and the Oolite in North-East Yorkshire, is not exposed in the quarry, but crops out beneath the sandstone on the flanks of the Upleatham Outlier. The geological hoziron of the Marske Quarry may therefore be fixed as the Lower Oolite, and as belonging to the Lower Estuarine Series