Among the important geological attributes of the small Cumbraes Basin in the southwestern off-shore Midland Valley of Scotland, the 4 km-long, fragmented but well-exposed section through the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary sequence in southern Great Cumbrae island ranks highly. In a continuous short stretch of the south and west coasts, large portions of this sequence are superbly preserved in tide-washed strandline surfaces and in old post-glacial sea cliff. This enhanced exposure leaves no doubt that the outcrops belong to two, immediately successive, members of the Kinnesswood Formation -- the lower the Doughend Sandstone, the upper the Foul Port Mudstone – and that they provide some of the best available exposures on which to base description and interpretation. The facies of the fluviatile Doughend Sandstone shares many characteristics with the underlying Kelly Burn Sandstone of the Upper Old Red Sandstone, whereas that of the Foul Port Mudstone is distinct and unusual, attributed to local tectonics, influenced by movements on older and more major fractures such as the Highland Boundary Fault, with sediment accumulation taking place in a playa-lake complex of considerable extent.

Foraminiferal diversity and taxa richness from beds transitional between the Asbian and Brigantian substages (Middle Mississippian) show patterns of secular change which allow detailed inter-regional correlations to be established. Foraminifera from the Askrigg Block, Stainmore Trough, Alston Block, South Cumbria Shelf and Solway Basin show similar secular changes (foraminiferal trends, FTs), allowing correlation to be made with the basal Brigantian Stratotype at Janny Wood. Despite the absence of consistent microfossil first occurrence markers for the recognition of the base of the Brigantian, this horizon can be confidently recognized by means of foraminiferal trends. The FTs allow the precise location of the base of the correlated Brigantian in sections where this boundary was questioned or controversial in previous studies, as well as to amend the position of the foraminiferal zones and subzones during the late Asbian and basal Brigantian. This type of analysis when used in combination with foraminiferal zonations, emergent surfaces and lithological cyclicity, together, provide a robust means for high-resolution correlation. This methodology, provides the least uncertainty in sections that have been most densely sampled, whereas for less intensely sampled sections there is more correlation uncertainty.

The early Marsdenian substage (Millstone Grit Group) of the Pennines comprises repeated deltaic cycles separated by ammonoid-bearing marine bands. This cyclicity, controlled by the combined forces of glacio-eustasy and modulations in sediment supply, provides an important outcrop area for the application of sequence stratigraphic principles. A new correlation framework is presented where two orders of sequence are identified: (1) a low-order sequence, within which marine bands (R 2a 1, R 2b 1, R 2b 2 and R 2b 3) represent a maximum flooding surface, and (2) high-order sequences nested within the low-order sequences. By integrating and correlating key exposures, historic well boreholes and field mapping, lateral changes in facies and facies association are observed, and palaeogeographic trends mapped. This allows the variation in sequence and systems tract stacking patterns to be interpreted. Three orders of Milankovitch cyclicity are inferred to control the sequence stacking patterns; long-duration ( c. 400 ka) eccentricity oscillation controlling maximum flooding events represented by the R 2a 1 and R 2b 2 marine bands, sub-100 ka obliquity oscillations (controlling the R 2b 1, R 2b 2 and R 2b 3 marine bands and intervening low-order sequence boundaries), and precessional frequencies ( c. 25 ka) which may control the periodicity of the high-order sequences. Supplementary material: Locality details, including lithostratigraphic units observed, gross and sand thicknesses within sequences, and palaeocurrent data measured are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6408203

A new specimen of a rare large theropod dinosaur print of Middle Jurassic age is described from the Long Nab Member of the Scalby Formation, Cleveland Basin, Yorkshire. This is only the sixth specimen of this type recorded from the Cleveland Basin since they were first discovered in 1934. The present specimen is included in the same, but slightly modified morphotype Bxviii as some of the previous ones, since it shows additional features including an elongated metapodium. The specimen is assigned to the ichnogenus Megalosauripus , and was possibly made by a Megalosaurus -like theropod. The elongated metapodium may be the result of resting or crouching behaviour.

This paper re-introduces a forgotten subject, cannel coal, formed within very low gradient mire drainage systems. A minute part of the British Carboniferous rock volume, cannel was prized in the early Industrial Revolution for oil and gas, notably hydrogen. In this paper it is revisited to reveal under-reported palaeogeography, using modern mining and drilling data to give regional depositional insights. The focus is on the English East Midlands, in the SE of the Pennine Basin. Early literature on other areas emphasized deposition in small lakes, assuming little connectivity. In the East Midlands, large lake deposits are connected by cannel-filled channels, from the basin's southern margins up to 100 km north into Yorkshire. Interplays with fluvio-clastic systems are spread over a subtle but simple palaeoslope, north and NE to the Gainsborough Trough sub-basin, with negligible structural disturbance during deposition of the Pennine Coal Measures Group. A gentle basement tilt is indicated. Mire drainage tangential to the central basin invites discussion on wider issues, including marine flooding into the basin. Mire longevity is discussed, this also being relevant to research on contaminant contents through coal-forming times.

Re-examination of the Langness Conglomerate Formation (LCF) on the coast near Dreswick Harbour, Isle of Man, has established that it is over 65 m thick, twice previous estimates. It formed as a small stream-dominated fan deposit during syndepositional faulting which controlled thickness and facies variations. The sub-Carboniferous surface shows considerable relief, perhaps as much as 10 m and is intricately brecciated and channelled just beneath the base of the conglomerate indicating a pluvial climate even prior to deposition of the LCF. Palaeocurrent data shows that sediment was derived from the NNW. Low in the LCF the sediment is all local in origin, but more exotic material is present higher up. The succession matures texturally (sorting and rounding improve) and mineralogically (lithic sand decreases) upwards and the succession fines upwards. The finer, upper part onlaps northwards across the older Manx Group extending for over 4 km inland thinning to 8 metres. This is consistent with the view that the Isle of Man formed a regional high during the Lower Carboniferous. The LCF resulted from the initial fault movements that led to inundation of the Isle of Man High in the late Chadian to early Arundian.

Here, we describe the upper Pliensbachian to middle Toarcian stratigraphy of the Dove's Nest borehole, which was drilled near Whitby, North Yorkshire, in 2013. The core represents a single, continuous vertical section through unweathered, immature Lower Jurassic sedimentary rocks. The thickness of the Lias Group formations in the Dove's Nest core is approximately the same as that exposed along the North Yorkshire coast between Hawsker Bottoms and Whitby. The studied succession consists of epeiric-neritic sediments and comprises cross-laminated very fine sandstones, (oolitic) ironstones, and argillaceous mudstones. Dark argillaceous mudstone is the dominant lithology. These sediments were deposited in the Cleveland Basin, a more subsident area of an epeiric sea, the Laurasian Sea. We present a set of geochemical data that includes organic carbon isotope ratios ( δ 13 C org ) and total organic carbon (TOC). The δ 13 C org record contains a negative excursion across the Pliensbachian–Toarcian boundary and another in the lower Toarcian that corresponds to the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE). Below the T-OAE negative excursion, δ 13 C org values are less 13 C-depleted than above it. We find no evidence of a long-term δ 13 C org positive excursion. TOC values below the T-OAE negative excursion are lower than above it. Sedimentary evidence suggests that, during much of the Pliensbachian–Toarcian interval, the seafloor of the Cleveland Basin was above storm wave-base and that storm-driven bottom currents were responsible for much sediment erosion, transport, and redeposition during the interval of oceanic anoxia. The abrupt shifts observed in the δ 13 C org record (lower Toarcian) are likely to reflect the impact of erosion by storms on the morphology of the δ 13 C record of the T-OAE. Supplementary material: stratigraphic and geochemical data [organic carbon isotope ratios ( δ 13 C org ) and total organic carbon (TOC)] are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6154436

A review of the exposures in the Cadeby Formation, Upper Permian (Lopingian Series) in South Yorkshire by the Sheffield Area Geology Trust revealed groups of previously undescribed sites near the base of the Sprotborough Member, at, and just above, the Hampole Discontinuity. These sites indicate: a wider degree of palaeoenvironmental variation along the Hampole Discontinuity surface than was previously evident; that the discontinuity surface is not laterally continuous; and imply some caution is needed when using these exposures as marker horizons. The field data is used to inform a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction for the period of the Hampole regression. A complex of near-offshore pools and islands, an area of partly exposed shoal and lagoon, and an embayment are identified.

A specimen of the ammonoid Cleviceras (Hildoceratidae), collected at Port Mulgrave, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, shows an in-situ aptychus in the body chamber. The precise stratigraphic origin of the specimen is unknown, but the lithology and generic identity are compatible with derivation from the Mulgrave Shale Member of the Whitby Mudstone Formation. The specimen is the first in-situ jaw apparatus to be reported for this genus from Britain. A second loose specimen, a Harpoceras sp. with in-situ aptychus was found and photographed at Deepgrove Wyke, but was too friable to be collected. Both specimens reinforce previous observations that the aptychus form type Cornaptychus is characteristic of the ammonite family Hildoceratidae.

The term sill nowadays employed for a broadly concordant igneous intrusion is widely believed to have been derived from the local term for persistent hard beds in the Carboniferous sequence of NE England, in particular the Whin Sill. Despite the intrusive origin of the Whin having been demonstrated in Teesdale by Adam Sedgwick in 1827, for much of the nineteenth century the alternative extrusive hypothesis, of which John Phillips (1836) was the principal proponent, was widely favoured. There were three principal reasons why the intrusive origin was not more widely held, unquestioning acceptance of the erroneous belief of local miners that the Whin Sill was always at the same stratigraphical horizon, a perception that the Teesdale outcrops were not necessarily typical of the rest of the region and a reluctance to accept that the intrusion of such large volumes of magma over such a great area was physically possible. In the 1870s, first the work of Tate and then the detailed six-inch to one-mile mapping of the Geological Survey finally dispelled any notion that the sill was at a consistent stratigraphical level. Curiously, though the correct determination of the intrusive origin of the Whin Sill was one of Sedgwick's earliest and greatest achievements in Northern England, it was not deemed of sufficient importance to merit mention by his biographers.