Ironstone Nodules Research Articles

On the Family Cyclidae Packard

The genus Cyclus contains a number of small Arthropoda which are found in the Carboniferous rocks of Europe and the United States. As a rule the fossils are small, less than an inch in diameter, and very often they are enclosed in ironstone nodules. Consequently they are generally overlooked and are rarely found in collections.

On some Insects from the British Coal Measures

The present paper consists of a critical study of some hitherto undescribed wings of fossil insects from the British Coal Measures, and of insect-wings previously noted by other authors. I am indebted to Mr. William Eltringham, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and to the authorities of the Geological Survey Museum, the National Museum of Wales, and the Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle Museums for their courtesy in placing the specimens at my service for study. This specimen was obtained by Major Chambers, and presented to the Derby & Mayer Museums, Liverpool, in 1858. It is contained in an ironstone nodule, much similar to those of Ravenhead (Lancashire). Its horizon is not known, but it is undoubtedly from the Middle Coal Measures. It was partly described and named, but not figured, by S. H. Scudder in 1885; and a figure of the wing appeared in the same year in Zittel's ‘Handbuch der Paläontologie.’ This figure was probably due to Scudder, who wrote the entomological section of the work for that edition of Zittel's manual. The wing lies in a fine-grained ironstone nodule, one half showing a left wing, and the other half of the nodule containing the impression. Since the specimen came into my hands for examination, I have been able to uncover the apex of the wing and a small portion of the base. A little of the base of the wing is missing, and also the middle portion of the inner margin. The total length of the wing as now seen is 87

ON THE FOSSIL FLORA OF THE SOUTHERN PORTION OF THE YORKSHIRE COALFIELD IN NORTH DERBYSHIRE AND NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

(Plates XII.–XIX.) ( Read November 3 rd, 1910.) The systematic palaeobotanical exploration of the great Yorkshire Coalfield has now been in progress for a considerable number of years. The plant petrifactions, found in the “Coal Balls” of the Gannister or Halifax Hard Seam of the Lower Coal Measures of Yorkshire, have been described by Binney, Williamson, Scott and others. Dr. Kidston has been occupied for twenty years past with a study of the plant impressions, chiefly of the Middle Coal Measures, especially those from the central portion of the Yorkshire basin, and has published two papers,1 and six reports2 on the flora of these rocks. The plant remains from the Southern extension of the Yorkshire Coalfield in North Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have hitherto received little attention, and it is with this district that the present paper is concerned. PREVIOUS RECORDS. The earliest figures of fossil-plants from this portion of the Yorkshire Coalfield are to be found in Martin’s Petrificata Derbiensia, published in 1809. Among the specimens there figured are examples from Chesterfield, Alfreton and elsewhere, of Alethopteris lonchitica (Schloth.) [= Phytolithus filicites ( striatus ), plate 10]; Stigmaria ficoides, Sternb. [= Phytolithus plantites (verrucosus), plates 11, 12]; and species of Neuropteris [plate 19], Annularia [plate 20], Trigonocarpus [plate 21], Calamites [plates 25, 26], and Lepidodendron [plate 50]. Several of the specimens figured were contained in ironstone nodules. No detailed information is, however, given as to the precise locality, seam or horizon. In 1903, Mr. Wedd1 recorded Neuropteris sp., and Lepidodendron sp. from the Black Shale …

VI.—On a Method of Splitting Ironstone Nodules by means of an Artificial Freezing Mixture

Most geologists who have had anything to do with the ironstone nodules in the Coal-measures have been struck by their perverse and refractory behaviour under the hammer. How one nodule will refuse to break under the most well-directed blows, and another, though breaking easily, will exhibit to the disappointed collector a clean bright surface of clay-ironstone, without a trace of that organism that he hoped, and almost had a right to expect, was there. It seems therefore necessary to find some other and perhaps less violent method of breaking them.

I—Notes on the Geological Horizon and Palæontology of the ‘Soapstone Bed,’ in the Lower Coal-Measures, Near Colne, Lancashire

The ‘Soapstone bed,’ which has yielded the specimens about to be described by Dr. Henry Woodward, was so named by the late George Wild. It is a thin band of light-grey shale lying from 4 to 7 feet above the ‘Mountain Four Feet’ mine in the neighbourhood of Colne and Trawden.The shale contains an abundance of small flattened nodules, varying in size from half an inch to six inches in length, and from half an inch to two and a half inches in breadth. The vertical thickness rarely exceeds an inch and a half. The shale readily breaks down into a soft unctuous clay on weathering, whilst the outer surface of the nodules undergoes oxidation and breaks away in thin coats. The nodules consist of earthy carbonate of iron, and it is to the oxidation of the latter that breaking up takes place by a process of concentric scaling.Between the ‘Soapstone bed’ and the ‘Mountain Four Feet’ mine are black shales with dark ironstone nodules often full of Gonialites, Fterinopecten, etc. The horizon from the top of the coal-seam to the ‘Soapstone bed’ is the most prolific in organic remains in the Lower Coal-measures, in whatever locality it may be met with.Whilst the horizon of the Soapstone nodule bed is constant over a large area, the beds immediately subjacent to it are not. The Mountain Four Feet mine, upon which it rests under and around the whole of the Burnley coalfield, is seen when traced southwards to be formed by the union of two coal-seams, the ‘Gannister mine’ and the ‘Bullion mine’ respectively.

IV. On a Section of Carboniferous Strata, near Giffen Station, Ayrshire

In the first cutting of the Kilbirnie branch of the Caledonian railway, a short distance from Giffen station, a small section of Carboniferous rocks is exposed, their position being in connection with the horizon of the Highfield limestone. This section would perhaps not be worthy of special notice but for the occurrence in it of a bed of sandstone which, from its close proximity to a fault, has become bent in a remarkable manner. The total length of the section is about 320 feet, and the strata are seen in this short distance to occupy a syncline, an anticline, and half an anticline, the latter feature being brought about by a fault. Two faults are also to be seen, though there are probably three, one being hid by the pier of the railway bridge. Commencing at the east end of the section, we first see a bed of sandy shale, slightly micaceous, with non-septarian ironstone nodules, a few being of the slickensided variety. This bed dips 10° towards the west. Above it there are 2 feet 6 inches of fireclay, slightly micaceous, and containing rootlets, and where the mica is abundant the fireclay is of a harder texture than it is elsewhere. Over this is 1 foot 4 inches of coal, which is a mixture of splint and free coal, and the jointings are either filled with carbonate of lime or bisulphide of iron. Above the coal is 1 foot 4 inches of black shale; and above the shale lies This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract

On Heterosuchus valdensis , Seeley, a Procœlian Crocodile from the Hastings Sand of Hastings

The specimen in the British Museum, numbered 36555, came there in the second Mantellian collection, which was acquired after Dr. Mantell's death. It is part of a thin ironstone nodule, 10 centim. long and 6 centim. wide, from the Hastings Sand of Hastings, manifestly water-worn, but containing vertebræ which have not hitherto been determined. The nodule (Pl. XII. fig. 7) displays the remains of fully a dozen vertebræ, which extend round the nodule in parts of more than one coil, so arranged as to expose the ventral surface or bodies of the vertebræ, towards the external margin of the concretion. These vertebræ indicate a procœlian Crocodile of small size; and although the remains are so imperfect, I refer them to a new genus, since their forms are different from those of any Purbeck Crocodiles or other described Crocodilia. The nodule displays some other vertebrate remains which may possibly belong to another kind of animal. Thus in a transverse fracture the outlines may be traced of two long ovals which extend in the same axis, and may represent the superior aspect of the parietal region of a small skull, in which each temporal fossa is 13 or 14 millim, wide and 7 millim, long. The external surface appears to small Purbeck Crocodiles ; and what might be the quadrate bone is seen to extend in an outward direction as it is prolonged distally. No proccelian Crocodile has the temporal vacuities elongated in this way; but from the imperfect preservation and small

The fossiliferous rocks of the Borrowstounness Coal-field

I. Lower Rocks. The lower marine (the so-called ‶mountain″) limestone usually taken as the inferior limit of the Scottish Carboniferous Limestone series is nowhere very distinctly seen on the Linlithgowshire coast, but the numerous blocks scattered about on the beach may be taken as an indication that its outcrop is about a mile and a quarter to the west of Blackness Castle, under the drift which at that place prevents the rock from being seen.* The thin argillaceous limestone or ‶cementstone″ which crops on the foreshore a short distance farther east, appears to be totally unfossiliferous, and has no resemblance to the great encrinal limestone of Charleston on the opposite shore of the Firth. The neighbouring rocks are chiefly shales and thin calcareous sandstones with fragmentary plant remains such as calamite stems, leaves, and scales of Lepidodendron, &c. The shales often contain beds of clay ironstone nodules, in some of which are to be found marine shells associated with small pieces of Calamites and other land plants. Orthoceras undatum (Flem.) is the only fossil which it has been my fortune to find in these nodules in a perfect state. The next rocks in the ascending series are sandstones, with ferruginous limestone bands and beds of shale. Immediately below the tuff at Carriden is a bed of black shale on which rests a coal seam a few inches in thickness. It is in turn overlaid by a bed of hard sandstone whose surface is covered with beautiful sharply-cut impressions of Spirophyton

On the Circinate Vernation, Fructification, and Varieties of Sphenopteris affinis , and on Staphylopteris (?) Peachii of Etheridge and Balfour, a Genus of Plants new to British Rocks

Conclusion Staphylopteris (?) has been found by myself in the “blaes” (once in an ironstone nodule amongst the “blaes”), rather plentiful at West Hermand, West Calder; by Mr. Bennie, fossil-collector for the Geological Survey of Scotland, in shales at Currie, near Slateford; at Straiton, near Burdiehouse, in a piece of shale at the oil-shale pit, by Mr. D. J. Brown, of Edinburgh, and Mr. Bennie. All these localities are in the Calciferous Sandstones of the Carboniferous formation of Scotland. All the diagrams were made by myself from specimens I collected. I send, with two exceptions (which are in the British Museum, but were also collected by myself), all the specimens figured; so that the Members can see for themselves how far they are to be trusted. One more remark. None of the American specimens of Staphylopteris agree with the British one; and thus Professor Balfour's wish as to species has been carried out.

On some Bivalve Entomostraca, chiefly Cypridinidæ, of the Carboniferous Formations

On some Bivalve Entomostraca, chiefly Cypridinidæ, of the Carboniferous Formations

Index to the Localities

Avon, Banks of the, near Hamilton. Shales in the first precipitous cliff, left bank of the Avon above the bridge. Neuropteris gigantea, N. Loshii, Sphenopteris Hibbertii, Lepidodendron obovatum, and Calamites. Baillieston. Springhill coal pits. Plants are very abundant in the roof shale, and in ironstone nodules above the Pyotshaw coal. Alethopteris heterophyllia, Cyclopteris dilatata, Neuropteris gigantea, Pecopteris dentata, Sphenopteris dilatata, S. Honinghausi, Asterophyllites longifolia, A. tuberculata, Calamites nodosus, Sphenophyllum Schlotheimii, Lepidostrobus pinaster, Trigonocarpum ovatum; fish spines in the shales of the Splint coal. Bellshill. Coal pits between Bellshill and Motherwell. Plant-remains in the roof of the Main, and fish remains in the roof of the Splint coals. Bello Water, 1 mile E. of Lugar Station. Anthracosia robusta form a bed 18 inches in thickness. Carmyle. Coal pit near Carmyle Mill. Ferns in an arenaceous shale, and Gyracanthus formosus, Pleuracanthus gibbosus, Pleurodus, and Ctenoptychius pectinatus, in a bituminous shale, overlying the Splint coal. Carnbroe. Ironstone pit, No. 10. The roof shale of the Palace Craig ironstone contains Pholaderpeton, Pteroplax cornuta, Anthracosaurus Russelli, Loxomma Allmannii, Megalichthys Hibberti, M. coccolepis, M. rugosus, Acanthodes Wardii, Rhomboptychius, Strepsodus sauroides, Rhizodopsis minor, R. major, Gyracanthus formosus, G. tuberculatus, Pleuracanthus gibbosus, Ctenacanthus major, Cladodus, Ctenodus cristatus, C. tuberculatus; also several species of Lepidostrobus, Anthrapalaemon Grossarti, and Anthracosia. Mr. James Thomson has found in this bed three palatal teeth, Pleurodus Rankinii, P. affinis, and a Helodus embedded together in a mass of shagreen. Castlehill, 1 mile N. of Carluke. Coal pits. The remains of between thirty and forty This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract

Geological Discovery in Liverpool

ALL geologists visiting Liverpool for the approaching Meeting of the British Association for the advancement of Science will be glad to hear of the recent discovery of some new beds in the coal measures near Liverpool, which are exceedingly prolific in fossil remains. The new line of railway between Liverpool and St. Helen's runs at one place not far from Rainhill, through Thatto Heath, where along cutting was rendered necessary. This cutting is through beds all belonging to the carboniferous strata—a thick coal seam, and the accompanying beds of shale and fireclay being all cut through. The fireclay contains abundant remains of all the varied plants of this epoch, with a few marine shells, Anthrocosia in some places. There is a large collection of these fossils now on exhibition in the Derby Museum, collected by the Rev. H. H. Higgins, who has shown great energy in the matter, and who has most generously presented his collection to the museum. This collection well merits the attention of all geologists, especially those interested in fessil botany. The plants found are in the most perfect state of preservation, and they are by no means difficult to meet with. They are chiefly Sigillaria, Calamites, Lepidodendron, Neuropteris Loshii, N. nervosa, and N. gigantea: some of the species, the rarer Asterophyllites and Sphenophyllum, together with many others, being not yet accurately determined. Throughout the clay are found scattered nodules of ironstone, which, on being broken up, are found to contain fossil remains, generally ferns or Equiseta. There have, however, been two exceedingly valuable finds lately made, two fine specimens of the wings of Neuropterous insects having come to light. One of these is in the possession of the Rev. H. H. Higgins; and the other, measuring some 3 to 3½ in. in length, is in the possession of Mr. E. Cleminshaw, of Merton College, Oxford. Both of these will be exhibited at the approaching meeting. They were both found in the ironstone nodules, and are very interesting, as only one other specimen, we believe, is known from the English coal measures. Not far from this cutting is a small coal pit, from which many interesting fossils are to be obtained. These are chiefly fish-remains, teeth, jaws, scales and bones, and a few rare ferns. The ease with which the blocks split into thin laminæ render these fossils easily found, and they are in a good state of preservation.

XXIV. On the discovery of Carboniferous Limestone fossils in the Upper Coal Measures to the east of Glasgow

The author exhibited specimens of Productus scabriculus, Discina nitida, Conularia quadrisulcata, Bellerophon Urii, and a shell like Axinus deltoideus, but not sufficiently perfect for identification, and fragments of pentagonal stems of a crinoid, recently discovered in the Upper Coal measures, very greatly higher in the Carboniferous series than previously known. The fossils of this character are true marine types, and have not hitherto been found higher in the Carboniferous series in the West of Scotland than about 290 fathoms under the Ell coal, generally in the Mountain Limestone, and its concomitant shales. But the specimens now produced were discovered in a coal-pit shaft on the Drumpeller estate, about six miles east of Glasgow, enclosed partially or altogether in clay ironstone nodules—these again enveloped in clay shale, a few of the dorsal valves of the Productus being in the shale itself. Their position is about thirty fathoms from the surface, over and underlaid by the usual alternations of sandstones, shales, and fireclays. In this pit the Main coal is calculated to be 100 to 110 fathoms from the surface, and the Ell coal, if in its usual relative position to the main seam, would be ten to fifteen fathoms higher. The position of this fossil bed, therefore, is about sixty fathoms above the Ell coal, thus giving these varieties of ocean life a horizon of upwards of 300 fathoms higher than hitherto known in our Scottish coal fields, the remarkable distinction being that they lie above the regular coal seams of This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract

On some Crustaceous Remains in Carboniferous Rocks

This communication accompanied two electrotype casts of the specimens alluded to. The one was found in the white ironstone measures at Ridgeacre Colliery, and the author states,—“I at first thought it might be the head and carapace of a new species of Eryon except that the known species from the Solenhofen slate are much more deeply notched on the edges of the carapace, and the apparently spinous prolongation of the head and some other details do not agree. The white ironstone in which it was found is a bed in the lower part of the field below what is called the New Mine coal. It is the bed in which the finest remains of Megalichthys have been found.” “The other fossil is in an ironstone nodule. The form is not so well defined as in the first, and I dare not venture to guess to what it may be referred.”