Silurian

M . G. B A S S E T T , B. J . B L U C K , R. C A V E , C. H . H O L L A N D & J . D. L A W S O N

The history of establishment of the Silurian System (and hence of the The end of the Ashgill coincided closely with the collapse of the late
Silurian Period) and its principal divisions has been reviewed by Cocks et al. Ashgill ice-cap, and the basinal rocks of the persculptus Biozone reflect a
(1971) and Holland (1984, 1989a). The System itself, three of the four Series sharp change in the depositional environment. The southern British Isles
into which it is divided, and the Stages within these three, are all based upon basins had a form which continued to the end of the Silurian, and thus the
localities in Britain. The names of all the divisions shown in Fig. 1 have been Ashgill Epoch is revealed more as the antecedent of the Llandovery than a
ratified by the International Union of Geological Sciences. The two major descendant of the Caradoc.
divisions, Lower Silurian and Upper Silurian, remain informal, but they are Localized tectonic activity occurred widely during, the Llandovery; in
useful when degree of precision in correlation does not allow reference at the Pretannia to the south, along the eastern margin of the Welsh Basin, in the
level of Series (Holland 1989a). The boundary stratotypes are all described closure of Iapetus leaving a remnant linear basin, and in the rising of the
in Holland & Bassett (1989). Graptolite Biozones have proved especially southern margin (Cockburnland) of the Midland Valley Basin (Bluck 1983).
useful for international correlation in the Silurian and the sequence of RC
Biozones used in Britain is shown in Fig. 1. Correlation of the Biozones with
the global Standard Series and Stages is shown approximately, but is not Sla: Southern British Isles: latest Ashgill-early Llandovery
known with exactitude in all cases.
The time represented by the persculptus and acuminatus biozones signalled
Standard Standard graptolite the start of the Llandovery marine transgression, and for this reason was
Series Stage biozones
chosen for the Atlas. As the base of the Silurian is formally defined at the
base of the acuminatus Biozone (Cocks et al. 1984), part of the evidence used
P~DOLI
graptolite zones with the shelly sequences is still not accurately accomplished,
o . 84 Ludfordian bohemlct~ the timing of events is not precise and is open to amendment. For example,
O. Zelnt~xzrdlnertsls
tumeaeens it is impossible to correlate the shelly shelf sequences of Garth and Llando-
scanlcn~s
ni~asonl
very on the southeast flank of the Towy (Twyi) Anticline with the graptolitic
Zudensis basinal sequence some 6 km away on the northwest flank. The persculptus
z nassa
Zundorent
mudstones thus cannot be mapped into the shelly sequence of sandstones
<
e~Zesae and mudstones to afford any sort of physical link. Even where the Towy
Sheinwoodian Zinnarssont
or ,_ rlgldus Anticline plunges steeply northward at Abbeycwmhir (Roberts 1929) the
r[eeurtonena[s persculptus Biozone strata (together with higher beds) disappear northward
Z3 .mrehtsont
centri~ugl~ from the sequence on the western flank of the anticline before sandstones
...J erenu~ata containing a Hirnantia fauna appear around the closure.
o Telychlan grlestonlensls
erispus At this time the deeper water depositional basins of Wales, the Lake
09 -J
turrlcu~atus District and Tornquist Sea persisted on either flank of the Midland
sedg~teklt
convo~utus Platform of England. The shallow shelf-seas were narrow, but were widening
Aeronian ~eptotheca with the transgression, so that terrestrial detritus carried from the Platform
magru~
trfangu~atus in rapid run-off rivers were trapped in the marine shelf environment behind
eyphus
Rhuddanian aclnaces
the advancing shoreline.
atavus The basins and their slopes, suddenly starved of coarse detritus and
acumtnagus
concomitant high energy turbidity currents, accumulated fine mud from low
density turbidity currents and a rain of carbonaceous pelagic debris. Occa-
Fig. 1. Silurian Global Standard Stratigraphy and graptolite biozones. sional floods of coarse detritus invaded the generally anoxic basins through
restricted basin margin submarine channels. Small base-of-slope bodies of
Geodetically the position of the British Isles in the Silurian remained gravel and sand formed, e.g. along the southeastern margin of the Welsh
astride the 25~ latitude, a position it had reached in the later Ordovician Basin (Drew & Slater 1910; Kelling & Woollands 1969, pp. 262-264 and
(Briden et al. 1973); movement was confined to rotation. During this time possibly Lockley 1983). In this sector the margin was sharply defined along
the south magnetic pole wandered, in terms of present geography, from near or just east of the site of the Towy Anticline. North of Abbeycwmhir the
to southwest Africa, to the Horn of Africa in early Silurian times, then back position of the basin margin is less well constrained, for the early Llandovery
along the equator to west Africa/Brazil at the end of the Silurian. is not exposed in crucial areas; a line from there passing east of Bala and
CHH, RC Llandudno is an approximate position. East of this line shelf-sea sediments,
often immature, poorly sorted sands, muds and gravels, were deposited
somewhat patchily. The faunas are dominated by brachiopods but do not
LLANDOVERY provide precise indications of age; it seems that on the east side of the
Berwyns the marine invasion of the shelf reached Meifod early in the
The Llandovery Epoch was characterized by marine transgressions. Thus in Rhuddanian, but did not reach the Welshpool to Berriew line (the Severn
the early Llandovery the English Midland Platform, much expanded by the Valley) until late in the Rhuddanian. So, while there are respects in which
late Ordovician regression, was flanked to east and west by narrow shelf- the Severn Valley here is the structural extrapolation of the Towy Anticline,
seas, whereas by the end of the epoch it was almost completely drowned by a it did not function palaeogeographically as it did near Garth, Llandovery
significant shallow sea. On the opposite side of the remnant Iapetus Ocean, and probably Haverfordwest where it separates shelly, shallow marine shelf
marine transgressions northward from the Mayo Midland Valley Basin facies from graptolitic basinal facies. Indeed in acuminatus Biozone times
encroached upon Grampian terrane. The transgressions were partly, maybe there was land at Welshpool and Berriew, while at Garth, Llandovery and
largely, eustatic and the agencies effecting them climatic and tectonic, with Haverfordwest there was a deepening marine condition, a condition which
both operating together in the early part of the epoch. Volcanism was minor had been continuous from at least mid Ashgill times. Rapid sedimentation
except along the northern edge of Pretannia from the Mendips to southern of transverse downwarps in the Platform edge was under way in places, e.g.
Ireland (Cope & Bassett 1987) and at the source of the bentonites of the Llandovery and Garth, so the actual acuminatus Zone shoreline was located
Southern Uplands Birkhill Shale. south of Haverfordwest, east of Llandovery, probably just west of Builth
The climatic effects towards the end of the Ordovician were those and through Welshpool.
attendant upon the growth of a polar ice cap over what is now the Sahara. Two palaeogeographical enigmas relate to the northern part of this area.
Sea level fell perhaps by 100 m (Brenchley 1984) and rose again when the ice- One is the problem of the divide between graptolitic and shelly facies at the
cap melted towards the end of the Ordovician. The resulting marine trans- north end of the Towy Anticline and in the west Berwyns (Fig. 2). Along this
gression was a worldwide event and it continued well into the Llandovery line the pre-griestoniensis Llandovery sequence is absent or largely absent.
(~3'phus times); the later stages were probably due to a tectono-eustatic rise In part of the west Berwyns the griestoniensis Biozone rests upon the per-
of sea level, a process which probably sustained the later Llandovery sculptus Biozone and in the Abbeycwmhir area of the Towy Anticline the
transgressions, too. It is possible that these repeated tectono-eustatic rises former zone rests upon Ashgill strata, Hirnantian and probably older. The
stemmed from closure or partial closure of the Iapetus Ocean, or from a sediments immediately above the break were graptolitic muds,.not the
ridge-trench collision (Campbell 1984) which ended southeastward subduc- deposits of a transgressive shoreline. The break is thus a non-sequence by
tion. non-deposition or by sliding and slumping within a submarine environment.
9 1992 The Geological Society 37

Fig. 2. Structural elements influential in Llandovery deposition in Wales and
Welsh borderland (partly after Temple 1988).
Furthermore the Llandovery sequence is more complete not only to the
west, in the Welsh Basin, butalso to the east. In the east Berwyns the early
Llandovery sediments are shelly; NW of Builth (e.g. Maesgwynne and
Trecoed; Baker & Hughes 1979) shelly muds and sandstones are considered
to extend down to the erispus Biozone; near Llanddewi Ystradenni pale
coloured shelly and graptolitic mudstones are reportedly as low 'Middle
Llandovery' (N. Kirk, MS). This non-sequence probably represents parts of
the early and mid-Llandovery submarine upper slope and distal shelf-edge
(Fig. 3).
The second enigma is the depth index of the early Llandovery faunas east
of the Berwyns around Welshpool. A progressive marine invasion of
subdued terrain suggests shallow water, but the Meifodia-Clorinda-Striek-
landia fauna of the Powis Castle Conglomerate is indicative of relatively
deep water. The apparent contradiction points to a steep shore-face, con-
trolled possibly by extensional faulting along the line of the Severn Valley
(Fig. 3).
From south Wales the shoreline extended across St George's Channel
skirting the south coast of Eire. Llandovery turbidites, mud-sand rhyth-
mites, commonly with base-missing Bouma sequences, occur in southeast
Ireland (Briick et al. 1979); and in the extreme south base-of-slope con-
glomerates (Ballyhest Member) occur, comparable with those on the south-
east margin of the Welsh Basin. A precise age for these is not known (they
may be mid Llandovery rather than early) but they coarsen and thicken
southward suggestive of a steep basin-margin slope and a narrow marine
NW
Eastern limit of earlyLMndoverygraptoliticmud
BALA W E S T E R NBERWYN HILLS
I I
. ..--"....
9 "" B. . . . f ,fi~tonienais
.''~-~Ga~l~ mud~ 'c...... andst0he'.~aio
.'"~irnant Lst.-
, ASHGILL-
/ T T I ~ O ' ~ K i l o m e t r e
Fig. 3. Non-speculative model of stratigraphical events in the southern Berwyn Hills. Vertical ruling represents non-sequences.
SILURIAN
shelf. To the north, turbidite deposition was continuous from the Ordovtctan
into the Wenlock. Further north, at Balbriggan (Rickards et al. 1973) and
marginal to the lapetus Suture at Tomgraney, Co. Clare (Rickards & Archer
1969), basin-plain graptolitic muds were deposited at least as early as the
acuminatus Biozone. The Tomgraney exposure may well lie north of the
lapetus Suture and the deposits therefore may have been oceanic pelagic
muds now associated with the margin of Laurentia.
In northwest England anoxic graptolitic muds were accumulating in the
western Lake District comparable with, and probably in continuity with,
those of the Welsh Basin and southern Ireland9 In the eastern Lake District
Cross Fell and the Howgill Fells (Rickards 1978; Burgess & Holliday 1979,
and at Horton in Ribblesdale, Arthurton et al. 1988) black mudstones
have at their base very calcareous mudstone, shelly in places, or a hard lime-
stone representing probably the persculptus and acuminatus biozones. These
deposits are thin, of shallow marine origin; the hard limestone with little
clastic detritus (e.g. in the Howgill Fells) may have been a hardground which
formed on the northern peninsular area of the Midland Platform at the end
of the glacioeustatic marine low, The condensed sequence rests in places on
sandy Hirnantian deposits and in the Cross Fell Inlier (Burgess & Holliday
1979) it has yielded Hirnantia sagittifera (Ingham & Wright 1972); this is
probably compatible with the supposed persculptus age and reveals that
there was little, if any, prior non-deposition in places. At Austwick, however
(Arthurton et al. 1988), a non-sequence does separate Hirnantian strata
from late Aeronian or Telychian rocks, so that attenuation or non-deposition
did occur in places.
The late Hirnantian/early Rhuddanian saw the growth of a major N-S
fault, the Brathay Fault (Rickards 1978) on the east side of the Lake District
and the limestone facies was developed only to the east of it. Furthermore
the greatest attenuation of the early Llandovery sequence occurs close to the
fault along its footwall. This may be a horst (Rickards 1978) but footwall
uplift on an extensional down-to-basin fault (cf. Jackson & McKenzie 1983)
is another possibility. If the eastern fault of the horst be discounted then the
submarine slope down towards the Howgill Fells 'basin' had to be steep
enough to promote slumping (R. B. Rickards pers. comm.). The Brathay
Fault, however, may have been only one of a set of approximately N-S
Llandovery extensional faults; for instance large gaps in the Llandovery
sequence commonly lie over or just east of approximately N-S structures
such as the Brathay Fault, the Western Berwyns Lineament, the Severn
Valley, the Church Stretton Fault (Presteigne) and the north end of the
Towy Anticline. Whereas the Taconic folding of the Shelve-Builth Basin
followed the cessation of southward directed subduction, these extensional
elements may be related to collision and cessation of northwestward directed
subduction during the Llandovery (Murphy & Hutton 1986).
RC
Slb, S2a: Southern British Isles: Llandovery (Aeronian)
For most of the Aeronian the palaeogeography changed little. Turbidites
dominated in parts of the basins, e.g. the Derwenlas Formation in Wales,
and 'distal mud' in the Stockdale Shales/Skelgill beds in the Lake District
and Howgill Fells.
The second transgressive pulse is attributable probably to a tectonic event
and it commenced in convolutus times (Aeronian) but characterized more
particularly sedgwickii times. Marine conditions spread rapidly across the
subdued Midland Platform; its shoreline ran from south of the Malvern
Hills up their west side to fringe the Precambrian rocks of Shropshire. There
the Longmynd formed a southwestward extended peninsula with sub-littoral
sands on its eastern side and an exposed shoreline of cliffs on its west
(Bridges 1975).
North of Shropshire the position of the shoreline is ill-defined. Geophysi-
cal evidence (Bott 1967) suggests that a salient of the Midland Platform
projected into northern England, but the shoreline must have lain east or
southeast of Ribblesdale and thence through eastern England west of
boreholes near the east coast which penetrated Llandovery turbidites,
SE
Western limit of early Llandoverymudsand& gravel
MEIFOD WELSHPOOL
I
L A T E L L A N D O V E R Y
w ~ ~ , ~ I I I I
......... /' I~aieAlshJIIre r!se,4n ! I I
s 1p~~ ;' T
39
40 SILURIAN
West of the Midland Platform the shoreline bounded the north side of
Pretannia (Cope & Bassett 1987) through South Wales to south Pembroke-
shire, having migrated a little southwards beyond its early Llandovery
position. This suggests that the margin of Pretannia was steep at the time or
was tectonically positive. There was a very active volcanic centre in St
George's Channel, off Skomer Island (Ziegler et al. 1969) extruding basalt
and rhyolitic domes eastward and southward (Bridges 1976; Cope & Bassett
1987; Walmsley & Bassett 1976). These also shed detritus southwards
creating off-shore barrier islands and shallow marine lagoons. Close by to
the north, must have lain the basin, yet the products of volcanism are not
obvious in the contemporary deposits there. Immediately afterwards the
Pretannia shoreline regressed northwards, for deposits of the turriculatus
Biozone are absent in Pembrokeshire. This event coincides with the shedding
of the first of the northward directed lobes of coarse, commonly feldspathic
and often high-matrix turbidite sands into the mid-Wales basin, i.e. the
Aberystwyth Grits (Cave & Hains 1986). It was at this time, therefore, that
Pretannia took over from the eastern shelf as main supplier of coarse
detritus to the basin probably in direct consequence of tectonic and volcanic
activity along its northern edge.
During the Aeronian the Caban Canyon of Kelling & Woollands (1969)
had continued to entrain coarse extra-basinal high-matrix gravels basinward
from the east, past Rhayader, but the sedgwickii-turriculatus transgression
isolated the canyon-head from its supply of detritus, and shut it down.
Slumped mudstones overlain by coarse and pebbly sandstones (J. A.
Zalasiewicz, MS) indicate a brief resumption and eastward shift of canyon
activity on this eastern margin in iurriculatus times, but the main input to the
basin from the east was of high frequency, low density, mud-dominated
turbidites produced possibly by linear spill-over of shallow marine storm
surges from the shelf, e.g. Devil's Bridge and Cwmsymlog formations and
Rhayader Pale Shales, of which there are green and red facies. During this
time the redox surface lay within these deposits, below the benthic boundary
layer, and the basin floor was colonized by a burrowing and grazing benthos
leaving traces such as Nereites and Dictyodora.
In turriculatus times northeastern Wales saw the deposition of non-shelly
oxic muds punctuated by brief anoxic algal/graptolitic blooms, while the
shelly mud/sands facies advanced eastward beyond the earlier shoreline.
Basinal muds, often graptolitic and anoxic, also characterized the western
Lake District (Rickards 1978) and central Ireland (Balbriggan; Rickards et
al. 1973). Presumably the marine transgression seen in Wales and the
Borderland occurred here too, but minor influxes of sand recorded in the
western Lake District and at Balbriggan suggest the appearance of a more
active or proximal source area.
The Brathay Fault was not active at this time and muds with graptolites
were deposited across it at least as far as Ribblesdale but these eastern
sequences are thin, presumably platform mud with a shelly calcareous
component in the early Telychian.
RC
S2b: Southern British Isles: (Telyehian)
The last of the Llandovery marine transgressions occurred in griestoniensis
time. In the English Midlands and the Welsh Borderland the siliciclastic,
mainly mud/sand deposition which had been established everywhere west of
the Malvern Line then extended over the Midland Platform (Ziegler et al.
1968). The shelf-sea sediments, derived presumably from Pretannia to the
south, were distributed by storm surges. Water was mostly shallow, though
in places below wave-base (Benton & Gray 1981). Near Tortworth, in the
northern Pretannia orogenic zone, two basalts were extruded, both probably
in griestoniensis time. The earlier one flowed directly over Tremadoc rocks
and supports red mudstones on and near its surface. Here, therefore, may
have been an early griestoniensis land surface poised for inundation.
Towards the western edge of the Midland Platform, along the line of the
Church Stretton Fault at Old Radnor and Presteigne, no deposits of
griestoniensis age are preserved and coarse quartzose sands were deposited
on Longmyndian rocks in crenulata time. Apparently this tract remained
positive, possibly land, up to crenulata time thus maintaining a barrier which
trapped detritus on the shelf to the east.
To the west, the Welsh Basin remained little changed. It received further
major influxes of coarse detritus from Pretannia to the south, producing
vertically stacked lobes of turbiditic sand within a SSW-NNE depositional
system some 100 km long (Smith 1987). Conditions were often anoxic, so
that interturbiditic, hemipelagic muds were commonly graptolitic and carbo-
naceous. Dysaerobic and oxic intervals also occurred, developed as bio-
turbated mudstones, especially in the thinner bedded sequences on the east
side of the basin and lateral to the coarse sand lobes.
The eastern margin of the basin continued to suffer tectonically affecting
bathymetric gradients (particularly at the north end of the Towy Anticline)
and disturbing sediments and sedimentation in griestoniensis and crenulata
times and even into the Wenlock. On the eastern flank of the anticline, east
of Abbeycwmhir, mud was deposited directly upon an Ordovician substrate.
In places (e.g. Henfryn) there was a rudaceous base, largely of a mass mud-
flow nature, containing late-Ordovician debris. On the western flank of the
anticline the underlying deposits up to the crispus Biozone show slumping,
but away from the anticline on both sides griestoniensis sediments were
deposited upon earlier Llandovery deposits: It would seem, therefore, the
griestoniensis mass-flows can have been nourished only from contemporary
sediments high on the eastern flank of the anticline and from the Caradoc/
Ashgill substrate there. Since there appears to be no local shore or shallow
facies in the area, except the bed of coarse cross-bedded sandstone within the
Henfryn Conglomerate, these activities and the non-sequence must have
been submarine.
Over the western Berwyn Hills (Figs 2 & 3), mud deposition resumed
during griestoniensis time in a similar rhythmic, dysaerobic and anoxic style;
to the east however, where mud deposition had been much more continuous,
the conditions were mainly oxic and the griestoniensis (and earlier) mud-
stones are red and green as well as grey. In crenulata time such conditions
spread widely over Laurentia and northern Gondwana while along northern
Pretannia the shoreface transgressed southwards once more, drowning the
griestoniensis terrain of earlier Llandovery sediments and voicanics.
In parts of east Wales the pale coloured late Llandovery muds supported a
shelly benthos, e.g. near Welshpool, just west of the Severn--Towy Anticline
lineament, and near Llandrindod Wells, just east of it. Although the age of
these faunas may differ from place to place, the lateral passage from shelly to
barren mudstones is abrupt. These circumstances along the shelf margin
suggest that local shoaling, probably produced tectonically, reduced marine
depths to within a sharply defined base of viability for the epifaunas.
In northern England during griestoniensis time grey marine muds were
being deposited. The Brathay Fault showed little sign of activity and banded
muds, rather like those of the western Berwyn Hills, extended from the
western Lake District across to the Howgill Fells, Cross Fell and Ribbles-
dale where distal turbiditic mud rhythmites were accumulating.
Deposits in central Ireland (Balbriggan; Rickards et al. 1973) were very
similar to those of the Lake District and it is likely that one large marine
'basin' extended across southern Ireland into the Lake District and Wales.
The imprecisely dated turbidites of southeast Ireland (Briick 1972; Penney
1980) continued to form a fan, proximal in the southeast, extending distally
over the basin-plain to the northwest. The westward directed currents
indicated west of the Leinster Granite could have come from the Irish Sea
land-mass, but equally they might have been bathymetric deflectants of a
general northward flow, for no good evidence of the land-mass comes from
the Welsh Basin at this time.
RC
WENLOCK
The marine transgression eastwards and southwards in the late Llandovery
led to a palaeogeographical situation in the southern part of the British Isles
which comprised a basin to the west and an extensive shelf to the east, across
the Midland Platform. This pattern prevailed through Wenlock times. The
basin was, however, partially divided by an area of shallower water and
perhaps an island, traditionally referred to as the Irish Sea Landmass. At the
beginning of the Wenlock (not shown on the maps), localized deposition of
carbonates in the Welsh Borderland led to the formation of the Woolhope
Limestone. The more widespread and prominent development of carbonates
across the Midland Platform is seen in the Much Wenlock Limestone
Formation of the late Wenlock. Farther to the east, and with reference to the
whole of the Wenlock, data from boreholes indicate the presence of deeper
water and a connection with the open sea. There is no evidence for a Iapetus
Suture in the Wenlock rocks of the British Isles, though information may
have been lost along a subsequent fault following approximately the same
line, and possibly with significant sinistral displacement.
Definitive and general works on the Wenlock rocks of the British Isles,
which also lead to other references, are as follows: Bassett et al. (1975) and
Bassett (1989) (for the type and standard Wenlock), Bassett (1974) and
Holland (1989b) (for England and Wales); Rickards (1978) (for Northern
England); Holland (1981) (for Ireland); and Walton (1983) (for Scotland).
CHH
S3a: Southern British Isles: Wenlock (Sheinwoodian)
The early Wenlock successions of the central Irish inliers are commonly of
poorly fossiliferous graptolitic shales and tubidites. Spores are present in the
Slieve Bloom Inlier and that of Slievenamon. Richly graptolitic mudstones
are seen at Balbriggan. Directional data are limited.
In northern England, data from the Austwick Formation of graded
greyish sandstone turbidites, alternating with mudstones, suggest a north-
westerly flow and proximity to an east-southeasterly shoreline. Farther to
the north-west in the Howgill Fells, the Lake District, and the Cross Fell
inlier, is the distinctive Brathay Flags lithology of blue-grey laminated
mudstones with calcareous nodules and bentonites. The Brathay Flags are
richly graptolitic and yield orientated orthoconic nautiloids. Rickards (1978)
has suggested that laminations running through the calcareous nodules
indicate a reduction in thickness from the original mud of over 40 per cent.
Since the earlier sedimentological work by Cummins (1957), using flute
moulds well seen in the Central and North Welsh turbidites of the Denbigh
Grits Group as directional indicators, it is necessary to recognize two
troughs, the Denbigh Trough and the Montgomery Trough, which come
together in the north. They were separated by the Derwen Ridge. There is
some evidence of slumping on the western margin of the Montgomery
trough. A thinner, more graptolitic sequence is seen near the North Welsh
coast. A graptolitic facies of flaggy silty mudstones and shales is also present
at the other side of the basin in the Builth district, where Elles did the
original work on the graptolitic biostratigraphy of the Wenlock.
On the shelf to the east are the muddy, more or less calcareous rocks
14 CAMBRIAN
Massif or on its margins. The Cambrian of Nuneaton accumulated to the
southwest of this Charnian Massif. Coastal Hartshill Formation sandstones
(cycle l, thick), through to condensed shallow water, shelly Hyolithes
limestones (cycle 2, thin) and deeper water Mn-rich shales (cycle 3, thick)
exhibit a trend reciprocal with that of Shropshire and close to that of the
Avalon succession, SE Newfoundland. The nearby Lickey Quartzites are
lithologically similar but are of uncertain age. The former presence of
limestones is suggested by clasts in the Permian Nechells Breccia (Brasier &
Hewitt 1981).
The Withycombe Farm borehole near Banbury, Oxfordshire, gives an
indication of conditions to the east of the Malverns. Volcanic basement of
presumed late Precambrian age is there overlain by the Withycombe Forma-
tion, a relatively thick sequence of sandstones bearing trace fossils (cf. cycle
l) passing up into a thick succession of offshore shales with Aldanella sp.,
Watsonella sp., Platysolenites antiquissimus, Orthotheca cylindrica and Lon-
tova-type acritarchs (Rushton & Molyneux 1990). This invites compari-
son with the Chapel Island Formation (cycle 1) or lower Bonavista Forma-
tion (cycle 2) of southeast Newfoundland, both of attleborensis age.
MDB
E~lb: Southern British Isles: St David's
The St David's Series is equivalent to the Middle Cambrian of European
usage, but not necessarily equivalent to that of other regions such as
Australia, China or North America. The Series is subdivided according to
the Swedish zonal scheme, with a lower, a middle and an upper part. In the
Welsh Basin the lower part is represented mainly by thick turbiditic
sandstone successions; in Shropshire by thinner glauconitic sandstones and
mudstones, and in the English Midlands by mudstones. Biostratigraphical
control is generally poor and correlation insecure (Cowie et al. 1972;
Rushton 1974).
Faunal control is better in the middle part of the Series, where the
following biozones are used:
Ptychagnostus punctuosus Biozone,
Hypagnostus parvifrons Biozone,
Tomagnostus fissus Biozone,
Ptychagnostus gibbus Biozone.
The gibbus Biozone appears to represent a widespread transgression,
possibly related to a eustatic sea-level rise (Rowell et al. 1982, p 176), but
that zone is not easily recognized in Britain. The overlyingfissus Biozone is
more widely recognized and this interval, for which correlation is more
secure, is represented on the map.
In the Shropshire area glauconitic sandstones and calcareous beds were
deposited in shallow water, and Cobbold (1927) demonstrated a local
unconformity indicative of uplift along the Church Stretton fault zone at
about this time. The absence of the St David's Series in the Malvern and
Lilleshall areas (Rushton et al. 1988) implies similar uplift, but with less
certainty.
The Midlands Platform carries a thin sequence of variegated mudstones
deposited below wave-base (Abbey Shales, three biozones represented,
< 40 m thick in total). The fauna is dominated by agnostid trilobites and
small brachiopods. Similar but thicker successions (c. 200 m total?) occur
in southwest Wales and also in North Wales, though there the mudstone
sequence is underlain by turbiditic sandstones offissus age (the Gamlan and
Caered formations) that show evidence of derivation from a southerly
source (Crimes 1970). This implies a positive area to supply sediment to
north Wales whilst by-passing the St David's area in the southwest. The
presence of bentonite beds indicates contemporaneous volcanic activity,
though the location of the activity is unknown.
There is no evidence for the St David's Series north of the Harlech Dome
and St Tudwal's Peninsula, and it is assumed that the Irish Sea Horst was a
positive area; nevertheless, no contemporaneous sediments are known to
have been derived thence.
The non-agnostid trilobites most typical of this epoch, Paradoxides and
blind benthic forms (Hartshillia, Holocephalina) characterize outer-shelf
environments in Wales and elsewhere in Avalonia (southeast Newfound-
land, New Brunswick) and in Baltica and the margins of Gondwana
(Conway Morris & Rushton 1988).
After fissus Biozone times, mudstone deposition prevailed (except locally
in the Comley area of Shropshire). There is a widespread hiatus after
punctuosus Biozone times and before the Merioneth Epoch, the mudstone
succession in the Nuneaton district being the best constrained (Taylor &
Rushton 1972).
In southeast Ireland the marginal basin of Leinster has yielded some
evidence of the St David's Series (Smith 1977, 1981). In Co Wexford (the
Cahore and Ribband Groups) and Co Wicklow (the Bray Group), the
sediments were deposited in deep water (Crimes & Crossley 1968). These
rocks yield trace-fossils, especially Oldhamia, in abundance (Dhonau &
Holland 1974), but acritarchs, in part of St David's age, are the only body-
fossils known; the best preserved are from the Booley Bay Formation
(Ribband Group) at Hook Head on the south coast (Smith 1981). Sediment
was derived from both the southeast (Irish Sea Horst) and the northwest,
where a positive area, possibly a marginal arc, is thought to have provided a
source area.
Less is known of the eastern Caledonide belt to the northeast of the
Midland Platform and facing the Tornquist Sea. The clastic sedimentary
rocks encountered in boreholes in Lincolnshire (Cowie et al. 1972, table 2)
are varied--phyllitic slates, feldspathic sandstones and greywackes--and a
Cambrian age has been suggested, but without adequate faunal control. It is
assumed here that this area was part of a marginal basin that existed
throughout the early Lower Palaeozoic and extended from northern England
into the Brabant area of Belgium where clastic rocks of Comley and St
David's age are known (Vanguestaine 1974, 1978). It is not known whether
the Precambrian of the Charnwood Forest area was emergent; there is some
geophysical evidence to the northeast of Charnwood Forest for the presence
of a post-Charnian, pre-Triassic succession that possibly represents part of
the local Cambrian (Maguire 1987). A positive area in northern Norfolk was
formerly postulated on the presence of supposedly Precambrian volcanic
rocks encountered in the North Creak Borehole, but these are now thought
to be part of the east Midlands Caledonian Belt (Pharaoh et al. 1987).
AWAR
4~2a: Southern British Isles: Merioneth
In Scandinavia the Merioneth Series has been divided into some eight
biozones and thirty subzones, and this scheme can be applied in areas, such
as England and Wales, where the olenid trilobite biofacies is developed. The
interval depicted on the map is the Olenus Biozone and more particularly its
upper part (O. cataractes Subzone).
Deposits formed in England and Wales during the Merioneth Epoch
reflect generally stable tectonic conditions. After a widespread non-sequence
in the late St David's successions (possibly caused by a eustatic regression), a
major new sedimentary cycle commenced, apparently before the end of the
St David's Epoch, in both the Welsh Basin and the English Midlands
(Rushton 1978; Allen et al. 1981).
The Welsh Basin, though deeper at the beginning of the Merioneth Epoch,
was partly filled towards the end of Olenus Biozone times with alterations of
shales and contourite(?) sandstones (upper Maentwrog Formation), and
those beds are overlain by thick shallow-water sandstones (Ffestiniog Flags
Formation, >650m, Allen et al. 1981). There is some evidence in the
Harlech Dome, St Tudwars Peninsula, and in the St David's area, that the
sediments were deposited by currents flowing from the south, as in the St
David's Series. To the north of the Harlech Dome, however, the Merioneth
Series is comparatively attenuated and includes shallow-water quartzitic
sandstones, with trace fossils (Cruziana facies) that appear to have been
derived from the north, though the indices of current orientation give a wide
range of directions (Crimes 1970).
Muddy sediments accumulated over the site of the Midlands Platform and
it is assumed here that these (Outwoods Formation of the Nuneaton Inlier,
with known subsurface extension to the south and west) transgressed the
Precambrian Charnwood Forest massif. The fauna of the Outwoods Forma-
tion includes olenid trilobites that tolerated oxygen-poor environments,
together with a number of other trilobite genera of wide palaeogeographical
distribution that inhabited outer-shelf regions (Rushton 1983).
In the Welsh Borderland the Olenus Biozone is unrepresented, the earliest
representatives of the Merioneth Series being the Orusia Shales (Parabolina
spinulosa Biozone) resting unconformably on Comley and St David's rocks.
However, at Malvern there is a thin sequence of Cyclotron-bearing shales
that are thought to be of Olenus Biozone age. Uplift along the Church
Stretton and Malvern lineaments is suggested by northeastwardly directed
slumps or currents in the Moor Wood Flags Formation of the Nuneaton
area (Taylor & Rushton 1972, p. 22). The derivation ofmicaceous detritus in
the Llangynog area, south Wales, is believed to be from a metamorphic
basement (Pretannia) to the south (Cope & Bassett 1987).
The later Merioneth Epoch, from Parabolina spinulosa Biozone to Peltura
scarabaeoides Biozone times, was dominated by deposition of black mud-
stones in disaerobic environments (Doigeilau, Bentleyford, Monks Park and
White-Leaved-Oak formations). These pyritic, carbonaceous and uranifer-
ous muds contain little or no coarse clastic material and are considered to
represent a period of slow deposition; the proved olenid zones differ from
locality to locality (Thomas et al..1984, p. 15), and the extent of possible
breaks in deposition, comparable with those inferred in the contempor-
aneous rocks in Scandinavia, is not certain. The black mudstones in the
Croft Borehole, Lilleshall (northern Shropshire), are unique in having many
intercalations of current-bedded siltstone and sandstone, presumably of
shallow-water origin (Rushton et al. 1988). The source of the silt-grade
material is not known but is thought to originate from a local uplift along
the Church Stretton Fault complex.
The sedimentary rocks of the southeast Irish marginal basin have poor
biostratigraphical control but include beds referable to the Merioneth Series
(Ribband Group; Smith 1977, 1981). They are argillites and arenites that
appear to have been deposited in deep water. The mudstones and fine-
grained sandstones of the Askingarren Formation, interpreted as underlying
correlatives of the Ribband Group (Crimes & Crossley 1968, pp. 191,207),
are considered as possibly late Cambrian in age. Flute casts indicate
derivation from a southerly quarter. There is no evidence for the continued
existence, into the Merioneth Epoch, of the marginal arc thought to have
existed to the northwest of the southeast Irish marginal basin in St David's
times.
There is no biostratigraphical evidence for the Merioneth Series in the
eastern English Caledonides (see the St David's Series, above).
AWAR
42
generally referred to collectively as the Wenlock Shales. They are sparingly
graptolitic but yield rich shelly faunas of brachiopods, trilobites, corals, etc.
Thin bentonites are commonly present, as, for example, in the Wenlock
Shales of the Ludlow anticline. The andesites and tufts of the Mendips were
regarded by Ziegler et al. (1968) as of Wenlock age. The southern shoreline
is shown as running north of Freshwater West and Freshwater East in
Pembrokeshire (Dyfed), as the basal part of the Wenlock is missing here
(Bassett 1974).
What amounts to a very substantial knowlege of the pre-Permian floor
was charted by Wills (1978). A number of boreholes for coal or water have
penetrated Silurian rocks. The extent to which this southeastern marine area
merged with the Welsh Basin and shelf remains uncertain. Exposures and
boreholes in Belgium suggest a marine connection in this direction,
CHH
S3b: Southern British Isles: Wenlock (Homerian)
Through the late Wenlock, the palaeogeographical framework remains
similar, but there are some additional sources of evidence and there are some
important changes in the facies pattern.
Conspicuous among the central Irish inliers is the relatively large Slieve
Phelim-Devilsbit Mountain district (Doran 1974). Graptolites indicative of
the Monograptus ludensis Biozone are actually confined to a small area in the
northwestern part of the inlier, but the repetitive sequence of greywackes,
laminated siltstones, and mudstones in the remainder of the inlier are
confined to the immediately preceding Cyrtograptus lundgreni Biozone. A
quiet water r6gime was interrupted by westerly flowing distal turbidity
currents. Apart from graptolites and orthoconic nautiloids, other fossils are
rare. Cope (1959) analysed those present to show that the greywackes carry
derived thick-shelled brachiopods and crinoids, certain micaceous siltstones
show a terrestrially derived association of plant fragments and a phyllo-
carid, whereas possibly benthonic brachiopods, small bivalves, and crinoids
occur in the more common laminated siltstones. In the very small inlier of
Knochshigowna Hill, to the north of the Slieve Phelim-Devilsbit inlier and
to the west of Slieve Bloom, a similar facies of early Wenlock age is followed
by conglomerates with sandy pockets containg a Homerian shelly fauna in
which brachiopods are the dominant constituent (Prendergast 1972). It
appears to have been derived from a shallow water environment, though the
state of preservation of the fauna does not indicate prolonged transport. The
narrow inlier of the Cratloe Hills to the north of Limerick City also yields
a pebbly sandstone with Homerian shelly fossils, interrupting the usual
sequence of sparsely graptolitic laminated siltstones and sandstones
(Holland et al. 1988). There is thus some evidence for a northerly directed
palaeoslope. Confirmatory evidence for the palaeogeography is seen in the
very rich Homerian shelly faunas of the Dingle Peninsula (Holland 1988).
There are associated volcanics, chiefly acid in composition, including very
well displayed ignimbrites and pyroclastics. Finally, to the northeast at
Balbriggan the largely unfossiliferous greywackes of the Skerries Formation
contain fragmentary graptolites of very late Wenlock and possibly younger
age.
There is evidence of the former presence of Wenlock rocks in the
occurrence of derived corals in the Carboniferous (or possibly Devonian)
Peel Sandstone of the Isle of Man (Crowley 1985). The situation in northern
England remains similar to that in the early Wenlock. The Middle Coldwell
Beds are of Monograptus ludensis Biozone age. Their pale grey mudstones
are unlaminated or thoroughly bioturbated. There are limestone lenses rich
in trilobites and brachiopods, and also graptolitic bands of Brathay Flags
lithology.
In North Wales, the latest part of the Wenlock is represented by the
Lower Nantglyn Flags Group (Warren et al. 1984), the background sedimen-
tation of which is of 'ribbon banded mudstones'. In this facies mudstones
alternate with laminated muddy siltstones yielding graptolites, orthocones,
and bivalves. There are some lenticular beds of calcareous siltstone. The
whole represents relatively quiet sedimentation, with the mudstones having
arrived from weak turbidity currents and the calcareous siltstones as distal
turbidites. Interrupting the ribbon banded mudstone sequence are the
disturbed (slumped) beds of the Brynsylldy Formation and, at a generally
lower level, the intensely bioturbated Upper Mottled Mudstone with its
shelly fauna. Cummins (1959) gave detailed description of the Nantglyn
Flags from the wider area from Central to North Wales. Their directional
system of derivation was as for the earlier and coarser Denbigh Grits.
At Marloes Bay in Pembrokeshire, the shallow water Grey Sandstone
'Series' yields Homerian fossils in its lower part. A little farther south at
Freshwater West and Freshwater East the youngest Wenlock beds are
already in Old Red Sandstone facies. At Cardiff, poorly fossiliferous
sandstones and siltstones are succeeded by a thin red crinoidal limestone
which appears to be equivalent to part of the Much Wenlock Limestone.
According to Bassett (1974), the southern margin of the Wenlock Lime-
stone Platform lay close to Usk and Tortworth, where arenaceous horizons
appear. The Ware and Cliffe boreholes to the east show faunas and litho-
logies of Wenlock Shales type.
In the richly fossiliferous Much Wenlock Limestone the bioherms are best
developed at the seaward fringe of the reef belt, and there is also an upward
increase in reefal material as the clay particles decrease. The frame builders
were especially tabulate corals, together with stromatoporoids, branching
rugose corals, and fenestellid bryozoans. Stromatolites, laminar tabulate
corals, stromatoporoids, algae, and bryozoans acted as reef binders. There
SILURIAN
were associated crinoids, brachiopods, ostracodes~ and gastropods. The
bioherms have an average diameter of 12 m, with maximum thickness of
some 45 m. There are various inter-reef and off-reef facies of argillaceous
and crinoidal limestones. The Wenlock Limestone at Dudley appears to
have been deposited earlier than elsewhere, i.e. at the time of the preceding
Cvrtograptus tundgreni Biozone,
Again a connection to open sea is shown in the east, Siveter & Turner
(1982), described a microvertebrate assemblage from the Wenlock rocks of
the Tortworth inlier, which has Baltic and Siberian affinities. Another hint of
such wider connection from west to east is the occurrence of the Bohemian
tabulate coral Stelliporella in the Homerian rocks of the Dingle Peninsula.
CHH
LUDLOW
After an initial rise in sea level the dominant theme in Ludlow times was one
of marine regression, leading to the restricted marine and fluviatile con-
ditions of the Pfidoli Epoch. The Welsh and Lake District basin became
silted up and shallow. Terrestrial red beds were developed well before the
end of the epoch in Pembrokeshire and southwest Ireland. In Scotland there
is some palaeontological evidence for Ludlow rocks (Selden & White 1983).
Radiometric dates on lavas of the Lower Old Red Sandstone (Thirlwall
1988) support the long-held view that marine influenced alluvial deposition
was taking place there in Ludlow times.
S4a: Southern British Isles: Ludlow (mid Gorstian)
Over the Welsh Borderland there was a marked transgression in early
Gorstian times indicated by mudstones with a diverse fauna of dominantly
small brachiopods. The basin areas accumulated graptolitic muds at this
time. The greatest depth appears to have been in mid Gorstian times when
graptolitic muds were also deposited over the outer shelf region around
Ludlow. Over most of the shelf, however, shelly muds (the Glassia obovata
Association of Watkins 1979) were deposited. Bentonites are common but
the source of the original volcanic ash is not known; a more distant source
than the Mendips seems likely, perhaps in central Europe, Gorstian deposits
are absent near Gorsley, south of the Woolhope Inlier, and are thin in the
May Hill Inlier but thicken southwards in the Brookend Borehole indicating
that the thinning is due to a local uplift and not an approach to a shoreline.
There is little direct evidence of the source of the shelf sediments: being a
time of maximum transgression, probably little of the Midland Platform was
emergent. The dominant source of material is presumed to be Pretannia to
the south (Cope & Bassett 1987). There is no borehole evidence of Gorstian
rocks in eastern England but it is postulated that shallow seas covered this
area.
West of the Church Stretton lineament there is a fourfold increase in
thickness and a marked change of facies in the Montgomery Trough of the
Welsh Basin. The main stratigraphical unit is the Bailey Hill Formation
which consists of alternations of hemipelagic carbonaceous laminae and
calcareous siltstone units which Bailey (1969) interpreted as turbidites. Tyler
& Woodcock (1987) have suggested an alternative origin as distal storm
deposits from the shelf, deposited below wave-base in the deeper water of an
outer shelf and not a basin. One difficulty in this interpretation is the rarity
of storm deposits in the mid Gorstian rocks of the Welsh Borderland area:
storm deposits are, however, very common in the succeeding Ludfordian
rocks but do not result in pseudo-turbidites in the east-central Wales area.
Tyler & Woodcock suggest that the main axis of the Welsh Basin lay farther
to the west. Bailey, however, interpreted the northward flowing currents as
turbidity currents flowing along the axis of a trough; this model is supported
by the occurrence of slumped shelly mudstones around Builth which moved
northwestwards from the shelf and slumped siltstones in the Clun Forest
areas which moved southeastwards towards the presumed axis. Despite
complications afforded by the Clun Forest area, the evidence seems to
support the presence of a locally uplifted submarine area west of Clun
Forest. It is indeed probable that the main axis of the Welsh Basin did lie
well to the west; perhaps, as suggested for the Wenlock, there was a western
trough and an eastern trough.
In North Wales (Warren et al. 1984) the Upper Nantglyn Flags and much
of the Elwy Group are of this age. The Nantglyn Flags comprise ribbon-
banded mudstones with laminae of silt (possibly distal turbidites) alternating
with the autochthonous hemipelagic muds. In the Elwy Group greywacke
siltstones and sandstones of probable turbiditic origin provide evidence of
transport from the west, along the axis of the Denbigh Trough. Pene-
contemporaneous slumps are common; the axes strike W-E and the evidence
favours sliding from the north. As yet, no reinterpretation of the Denbigh-
shire sediments as being storm generated has been attempted.
The Irish Sea Horst is presumed to have persisted to the west from
evidence before and after this epoch, forming the western boundary of
the Welsh Basin, but the land area is shown as small because of the trans-
gression.
To the southwest of the Montgomery Trough, the Towy anticlinal area
accumulated detritus brought northwards from a delta forming on the
northern margin of Pretannia. Farther west the Ludlow rocks are cut out
by an unconformity at the base of the Old Red Sandstone, but in Pembroke-
shire the Gorstian is considered to be represented by the deltaic and intertidal
deposits of the Gray Sandstone Group and the fluviatile facies of the lowest
Old Red Sandstone.
43
44
The similarity of facies and faunas suggests that the Welsh Basin and the
Lake District basin were connected. There, the laminated muddy siltstones
of the Upper Coldwell Beds are succeeded by the thick Coniston Grits; these
have been interpreted as turbidites with evidence of derivation mainly from
the northwest. Furness (1965) suggested that the abundance of spilite and
chert fragments in the Coniston Grits indicated a derivation from the
Ballantrae Volcanic Group of southern Scotland. Alternatively a marginal
arc of Ballantrae type on the northern edge of the Southern Britain plate is
postulated here.
In Ireland (Holland 1981), there are greywackes around Balbriggan and it
is assumed that the graptolitic siltstones and shales of the Wenlock rocks of
south-central Ireland persisted into the Gorstian. In the Dingle area of
southwestern Ireland graptolitic shales pass westwards into calcareous
siltstones with a shelly fauna, mainly brachiopods, similar to that of the
Welsh Borderland shelf.
JDL
S4b: Southern British Isles: Ludlow (late Gorstian)
In late Gorstian times a gradual change took place in the Welsh Borderland
area from a muddy to a carbonate shelf: the change from 'Lower Ludlow
Shales' to 'Aymestrey Limestone' in the older terminology. The Lower
Bringewood Formation (Atkins 1979) comprises mainly bioturbated cal-
careous siltstones characterized by a fauna of large brachiopods, particularly
strophomenids. The Mesopholidostrophia laevigata Association (Watkins
1979) is dominant but Atkins also recognizes a shelf-edge Shagamella
ludloviensis Association and an inner shelf Atrypa reticularis-Sphaeri-
rhynchia wilsoni Association. The map mostly covers the succeeding Upper
Bringewood Formation, the most calcareous part of the shelf Ludlovian. At
the shelf-edge along a N-S band from Craven Arms to Aymestrey bioclastic
limestones are well developed, showing cross-bedding in places. Shell banks
crowded with disarticulated valves of Kirkidium knightii (the K. knight#
Association of Watkins & Aithie 1980) confirm the high-energy shallow
water conditions. At Aymestrey, the limestone thins and passes rapidly into
calcareous siltstones and then into laminated siltstones involved in westward
slumping.
The main shelf region seems to have been protected by the shelf-edge
ridge, although there is no evidence of any of the long-standing positive
blocks being emergent and undergoing erosion. In this quieter water the M.
laevigata Association is dominant in nodular silty limestones. In the inner
shelf area around the Malverns the influx of fine silts was increased and an
Atrypa reticularis-coral Association occurs (Watkins & Aithie 1980). The
near shore aspect is confirmed by the complete absence of the Upper
Bringewood Formation (and other formations) in the southern Woolhope
Inlier and the May Hill Inlier. Uplift in the Gorsley area (Lawson 1954)
evidently resulted in non-deposition and/or erosion. South of the Bristol
Channel, however, the nodular silty limestones reappear in the Brookend
Borehole. The suggestion by Mohamad (1981) that much of the back-barrier
shelf was intertidal seems untenable in view of the abundant articulate
brachiopods, corals, crinoids and bryozoa.
The shelf-edge was to the east of the line of the Church Stretton Fault for
most of its traceable course. There are northwesterly directed slumps around
Knill and New Radnor indicating persistence of a basinal area, not necess-
arily of great depth. Slumps in the Clun Forest area moved towards the
southeast, again suggesting the margin of a trough along which silt was
being transported northwards into an area of hemipelagic muds. The fauna
of graptolites and orthocones with a poor benthic fauna suggests that the
bottom waters were not well oxygenated, and lay well below wave-base
although not necessarily at great depth. The alternation of silt and mud gave
the laminated siltstone facies (Holland & Lawson 1963; the Striped Flags
of Kirk 1951) that persists northwards through the Long Mountain
into Denbighshire. For the Bringewood formations together the thickness
increases from c. 80 m on the main shelf to ~<500 m in the basin.
Fig. 4. Facies relationships in the Ludlow Series of South Wales and the Welsh borderland (from Holland & Lawson 1963). Key: I, shelly olive mudstone facies; 2, muddy
siltstone facies, 3, graptotitic shale facies; 4, laminated siltstone facies; 5, turbidite siltstone facies; 6, turnescenssiltstone facies, 7, shelly siltstone facies; 8, calcareous shelly
siltstone facies; 9, slumped shelly siltstone facies; 10, strophomenid siltstone facies; 11, massive limestone facies; 12, flaggy limestone facies; 13, deltaic facies.
SILURIAN
South Wales lay close to the northern margin of Pretannia and suffered
greater clastic input. The Usk Inlier displays the 'normal' nodular silty
limestones on the east but there is a westward decrease in lime content. A
little to the south at Cardiff (Waters & Lawrence 1987), poorly calcareous
shelly siltstones dominate. Farther west, near Llandeilo, the postulated delta
of mid Gorstian times had prograded northwards to give the conglomerates
and quartzitic sandstones of the Trichrfig Beds (Potter & Price 1965), with
red beds indicating periodic exposure. Marginal marine beds are character-
ized by a Lingula-bivalve-gastropod association suggesting salinity vari-
ations which discouraged articulate brachiopods and other stenohaline
forms. Northwards along the Towy Anticline the sediments fine to siltstones,
still poorly calcareous, and brachiopods become commoner.
Outside the area of this map (i.e. Pembrokeshire, Lake District, Ireland)
the conditions of depositon were similar to those of mid Gorstian times.
JDL
S5a: Southern British Isles: (early Ludfordian)
In early Ludfordian times the carbonate shelf environment was replaced by
clastic silt sedimentation. The basal sediments of the Lower Leintwardine
Formation are still limestones, well developed in a higher energy carbonate
belt near the shelf edge, e.g. Leintwardine and Aymestrey, where they are
succeeded by shelly laminated shales. The limestones form the top part of
the 'Aymestrey Limestone' of the traditional classification but it is notable
that the Kirkidium knightii-tabulate coral Association has disappeared. The
succeeding 'Mocktree Shales' contain a less diverse benthic assemblage
dominated by Shagamella minor and Dayia navicula and show a transition to
the basin facies. At Leintwardine submarine channels descended westwards
into the basin and slumping to the northwest is developed from Aymestrey
southwards.
Over most of the shelf the Lower Leintwardine Formation averages 50 m
in thickness. Basal nodular silty limestones are overlain by bioturbated
flaggy calcareous siltstones with thin limestone bands. Watkins (1979) called
this the coquinoid siltstone facies containing his Sphaerirhynchia wilsoni
Association. The fossils occur as disturbed neighbourhood assemblages
often in monotypic lenses due to environmental stress (Cherns 1988) on
a storm-influenced subtidal shelf.
The inner shelf sees a thinning of the deposits, particularly near the
Gorsley axis, and the common occurrence of shelly conglomeratic lime-
stones, some of which show evidence of hardground formation (Cherns
1980); these conglomerates are well seen at May Hill, South Woolhope and
in the Brookend Borehole but also occur in central England, Wenlock Edge,
Malvern and Usk. They evidently indicate interrupted deposition and perio-
dic erosion, mainly submarine. The formation as a whole is characterized by
a Sphaerirhynchia wilsoni-Isorthis orbicularis Association over the inner
shelf. In the higher beds thin layers of phosphatized clasts and fish remains
occur, again indicating phases of non-deposition with the enrichment of
organic phosphates by winnowing of fine sediment in the shallow warm seas.
A low-energy environment with a low sedimentation rate is postulated and
there is little evidence of the direction of transport or the source of the
sediment.
From the Welsh Borderland shelf into the Welsh Basin there is an abrupt
change both of facies and thickness (from 50 m to 200 m, then to 450 m;
Holland & Lawson 1963, p. 280)just east of the Church Stretton Fault. The
laminated siltstone facies is dominant, representing a low energy environ-
ment of poorly oxic muds receiving repeated influxes of silt. The Lingula
lata-Saetograptus leintwardinensis Association is dominant: Cherns (1979)
indicated that L. lata had the infaunal mode of life of Recent lingulids but in
deeper and muddier seas. At the western edge of the outcrop in Clun Forest
slumping to the southeast persisted, with a northerly movement of sediment
along "~he presumed axial region of the trough.
In South Wales, along the southeastern flank of the Towy Anticline,
poorly calcareous flaggy siltstones and fine sandstones occur, presumably
45
46
deposits of the delta front. The conditions were those of a moderate energy
marginal sub-tidal environment. In Pembrokeshire, red sandstones are
presumed to have been deposited partly in early Ludfordian times by rivers
flowing northwards from the Pretannia massif.
In North Wales the laminated siltstone facies persisted through the S.
incipiens Biozone into the S. leintwardinensis Biozone, the higher parts of
which are missing because of erosion. The same facies prevails in the
Bannisdale Slates of the Lake District and a connection with the deeper
water basin from Wales is assumed.
Over most of Ireland (Holland 1981) there is no evidence but the pattern
of earlier maps is followed by proposing a basin tongue stretching southwest-
wards across the centre of the country. In the Dingle Peninsula, however,
shallow water calcareous siltstones are dominant with a benthic fauna in
which the brachiopods suggest a connection with the Welsh Borderland
shelf, although the precise route is not clear.
The Upper Leintwardine Formation of the shelf is thin and though
generally of similar facies to the lower formation it has a distinctive fauna
including some trilobites and ostracodes which suggest a Baltic connection.
This Shaleria-neobeyrichiacean Association facilitates correlation with
Gotland and other areas. The basin facies has a widespread Aegiria grayi-
Neobeyrichia lauensis Association at the same level, and the neobeyrichia-
ceans also occur in the Lake District.
JDL
S5b: Southern British Isles: (late Ludfordian)
By late Ludfordian times an almost uniform shallow water facies had spread
over the Welsh Borderland, east-central Wales and the Lake District and the
area of deposition became more restricted with the continuing emergence of
the surrounding land masses in the Midlands and Irish Sea areas. The Welsh
basin was probably only slightly deeper than the shelf but remained a
tectonically negative area with a great increase in thickness of Whitcliffe
sediments from c. 40 m on the shelf to a maximum of about 400 m in the
basin area of Clun Forest.
The Upper Whitcliffe Formation of the main shelf comprises bioturbated
olive-grey flaggy calcareous siltstones with shelly coquinoid lenses: wavy and
ripple bedding are not uncommon with some thin cross-bedded units in the
higher layers (Bradfield 1987). Alternations of bioturbated siltstones and
shales with coarser laminated siltstones are interpeted as storm-influenced
deposits. The shell beds may be the traction load of the initial coarse fraction
deposit (Watkins 1979). Faunally the formation is characterized by a low-
diversity assemblage of brachiopods and bivalves: many of the early Ludfor-
dian (Leintwardine) brachiopods have disappeared, perhaps unable to cope
with an increased rate of sedimentation which would not have affected the
infaunal bivalves. A Salopina-Protochonetes Association is dominant. The
overall picture is of a proximal shelf subtidal environment with frequent
storm sedimentation. Antia (1980) considered that the topmost beds were
tidal. There was an increased sedimentation rate, increased energy level and
increased proximity to source (Watkins 1979). Bailey & Rees (1973) postu-
late directions of derivation from the east but not from a nearby source.
The facies is similar in the inner shelf but the Whitcliffe formations
become very thin around the Gorsley uplift (2 m at Gorsley). To the south at
May Hill, Tites Point and Brookend frequent interruptions in deposition are
indicated by the occurrence of phosphatized pebble beds, layers of fish
denticles ('bone-beds') and layers of euhedral biotite. There is also an
easterly thinning towards the Midlands. Boreholes in eastern England
(Stowlingtoft and Lowestoft) have yielded shallow water sediments of
probable late Ludfordian age.
To the west of the Church Stretton Fault system the equivalent strata
increase rapidly in thickness due to more rapid deposition in a subsiding
tectonic basin. The facies changes are, however, subtle: the siltstones are
somewhat darker and muddier but still with wavy bedding, low angle cross-
bedding and lenses of shells. The brachiopods of the Salopina-Protochonetes
Association are slightly but noticeably smaller than on the shelf and there is
a more diverse molluscan fauna. In the highest beds of Kerry and Builth
(and also on the shelf at Usk) the Loxonema Association occurs in decalci-
fied sandstones which are considered to have been deposited in a moderate
energy environment in a shoreface setting. In the western part of the
outcrop, in the Kerry and Long Mountain areas, Bradfield (1987) recognizes
a return to the olive-grey siltstone facies characteristic of the shelf. Some thin
slump bands occur. These facts suggest that the Bishops Castle, Knighton,
Radnor Forest and Builth areas were situated in somewhat deeper water
than the areas to the west and east. There is still some evidence of the
northwards transport of sediment (Bailey & Rees 1973).
In the Towy anticlinal area of South Wales, the separate Whitcliffe
formations are not easily distinguished. The late Ludfordian strata around
Cwm Dwr comprise olive-grey poorly calcareous siltstones with thin layers
of sandstone and decalcified shelly limestone bands (Bradfield 1987). A
Salopina-Protochonetes Association, depleted in Salopina, is present.
Further south, these beds are cut out by the unconformity at the base of the
Tilestones.
In Pembrokeshire fluviatile deposition continued and is presumably rep-
resented by red sandstones of part of the Old Red Sandstone.
In North Wales, erosion has removed late Ludfordian strata but pebbles
of calcareous siltstone with Whitcliffe fossils occur in the basal conglomerate
of the Carboniferous rocks and are presumed to give evidence of a similar
facies to that in east-central Wales.
SILURIAN
In the Lake District the late Ludfordian includes a large part of the thick
Kirby Moor Flags (Shaw 1971). This formation comprises thickly flaggy,
sorted siltstones with some slightly calcareous beds and lenses of fossils. A
shallow water Salopina-Protochonetes Association occurs but with many
more gastropods than usual. The sediments were derived from the north-
west. As with Wales, the Lake District basin had been largely infilled
(although there was still tectonic subsidence) to produce a shallow subtidal
moderate-energy environment.
In Ireland, it is postulated that the central region was emergent and being
eroded, with rivers providing sediment for the red fluviatile sandstones of the
Dingle Group in Kerry.
JDL
S6a,b, $7: Northern British Isles: Liandovery (Rhuddanian,
Aeronian, Telychian)
The palinspastic model used in maps of the northern British Isles, for the
Ordovician Period, was developed by J. K. Ingham and his aid in applying it
to the Silurian Period is gratefully acknowledged. The timing of the closure
of the Iapetus Ocean, the cessation of northwestward subduction and of
strike-slip on elemental boundaries are controversial. The maps subscribe to
the view that Iapetus continued closing, by northwestward subduction, into
the Llandovery Epoch, although during the epoch the ocean may have
become little more than an ensialic residual trough. The type of accretionary
prism which could have resulted is depicted schematically in Fig. 5. That the
two continents Laurentia in the north and Gondwana in the south had been
on a collision course for much of the early Palaeozoic and were still
separated by this trough in the early Silurian are probably the two least
disputed factors of the palaeogeography
SE downslope NW
__ movement
.r i," "xr
-...:-.. ;.:~/
Fig. 5. Evolution of Southern Uplands accretionary wedges: accretion stage with
southeast-directed thrusting (after Needham & Knipe 1986).
One reason for supposing that a collision of the two continental forelands
had occurred earlier, in late Caradoc time, is the lack of direct evidence of
arc-type volcanicity in either margin after the Caradoc. Bluck (1983) believes
there to be indirect evidence for Llandovery activity on the now concealed
Cockburnland and distal arc-type volcanism is evinced by the numerous
metabentonites in the Moffat Shale, ranging in age from the late Ordovician
to the maximus Subzone (early Telychian) (Merriman & Roberts 1990).
However, the inference has been drawn that subduction had ceased (Murphy
& Hutton 1986). Murphy and Hutton claim that the remnant, or 'successor',
basin (Fig. 7) was then bridged merely by clastic infill in the Llandovery. The
older view (Mitchell & McKerrow 1975) holds that the Iapetus Ocean,
floored by oceanic crust, continued to separate the two continents by more
than 1000km until late Silurian times (McKerrow & Soper 1987); from
Ordovician to Silurian time northwestward subduction continued while an
Ordovician-Silurian thrust-sliced sedimentary prism was incrementally
accreted to the Laurentian margin. Although volcanicity in North Wales,
southeast Ireland and the Lake District implies that southeastward directed
subduction of oceanic crust, beneath northern Gondwana, continued until
late Caradoc time there is no documented evidence for the consequential
accretionary sedimentary prism on the Avalonian foreland. It is supposed
therefore that sometime during the Silurian any such prism underthrust the
Laurentian foreland (e.g. Leggett et al. 1983; Stone et al. 1987), or was
strike-slipped away.
Southern Uplands / L o n g f o r d - D o w n Z o n e
Evidence of the palaeogeography of the Laurentian continental margin
resides in northward-dipping southward thrust slices of sedimentary rocks
which comprise the Southern Uplands in Scotland and the Longford-Down
tract in Ireland. Two different views have been expounded. One adopts the
requisites of the accretionary prism outlined by Leggett et al. (1979) with a
fore-arc trench, as described by Kelling et aL (1987), being dominated by a
variety of depositional systems, mainly fan-type turbidites which had
sources to the northwest in arc terrane, already accreted arc-apron sedi-
ments, and a continental source. Upon reaching the trench these sediments,
in Llandovery times at least, were diverted to the southwest and formed co-
axial turbiditic wedges. The early Llandovery sediments of each wedge are
recognizably different from the next, e.g. the Kilfillan Formation (KF) and
Money Head Formation (MHF) of Fig. 6A, suggesting that the trench was
not 'a single unconstrained basin', but divided by structural barriers. Sole
structures including flute-casts are common.
These coarse detrital sediments had an oceanward limit, possibly confined
by an outer trench high, so that hemipelagic anoxic muds were accumulating
to the southeast: the Moffat Shales. Of the fault-bound sequences in each of
the accretionary slices recognized by Leggett et al. (1979, fig. 2), that now
14 CAMBRIAN
Massif or on its margins. The Cambrian of Nuneaton accumulated to the
southwest of this Charnian Massif. Coastal Hartshill Formation sandstones
(cycle l, thick), through to condensed shallow water, shelly Hyolithes
limestones (cycle 2, thin) and deeper water Mn-rich shales (cycle 3, thick)
exhibit a trend reciprocal with that of Shropshire and close to that of the
Avalon succession, SE Newfoundland. The nearby Lickey Quartzites are
lithologically similar but are of uncertain age. The former presence of
limestones is suggested by clasts in the Permian Nechells Breccia (Brasier &
Hewitt 1981).
The Withycombe Farm borehole near Banbury, Oxfordshire, gives an
indication of conditions to the east of the Malverns. Volcanic basement of
presumed late Precambrian age is there overlain by the Withycombe Forma-
tion, a relatively thick sequence of sandstones bearing trace fossils (cf. cycle
l) passing up into a thick succession of offshore shales with Aldanella sp.,
Watsonella sp., Platysolenites antiquissimus, Orthotheca cylindrica and Lon-
tova-type acritarchs (Rushton & Molyneux 1990). This invites compari-
son with the Chapel Island Formation (cycle 1) or lower Bonavista Forma-
tion (cycle 2) of southeast Newfoundland, both of attleborensis age.
MDB
E~lb: Southern British Isles: St David's
The St David's Series is equivalent to the Middle Cambrian of European
usage, but not necessarily equivalent to that of other regions such as
Australia, China or North America. The Series is subdivided according to
the Swedish zonal scheme, with a lower, a middle and an upper part. In the
Welsh Basin the lower part is represented mainly by thick turbiditic
sandstone successions; in Shropshire by thinner glauconitic sandstones and
mudstones, and in the English Midlands by mudstones. Biostratigraphical
control is generally poor and correlation insecure (Cowie et al. 1972;
Rushton 1974).
Faunal control is better in the middle part of the Series, where the
following biozones are used:
Ptychagnostus punctuosus Biozone,
Hypagnostus parvifrons Biozone,
Tomagnostus fissus Biozone,
Ptychagnostus gibbus Biozone.
The gibbus Biozone appears to represent a widespread transgression,
possibly related to a eustatic sea-level rise (Rowell et al. 1982, p 176), but
that zone is not easily recognized in Britain. The overlyingfissus Biozone is
more widely recognized and this interval, for which correlation is more
secure, is represented on the map.
In the Shropshire area glauconitic sandstones and calcareous beds were
deposited in shallow water, and Cobbold (1927) demonstrated a local
unconformity indicative of uplift along the Church Stretton fault zone at
about this time. The absence of the St David's Series in the Malvern and
Lilleshall areas (Rushton et al. 1988) implies similar uplift, but with less
certainty.
The Midlands Platform carries a thin sequence of variegated mudstones
deposited below wave-base (Abbey Shales, three biozones represented,
< 40 m thick in total). The fauna is dominated by agnostid trilobites and
small brachiopods. Similar but thicker successions (c. 200 m total?) occur
in southwest Wales and also in North Wales, though there the mudstone
sequence is underlain by turbiditic sandstones offissus age (the Gamlan and
Caered formations) that show evidence of derivation from a southerly
source (Crimes 1970). This implies a positive area to supply sediment to
north Wales whilst by-passing the St David's area in the southwest. The
presence of bentonite beds indicates contemporaneous volcanic activity,
though the location of the activity is unknown.
There is no evidence for the St David's Series north of the Harlech Dome
and St Tudwal's Peninsula, and it is assumed that the Irish Sea Horst was a
positive area; nevertheless, no contemporaneous sediments are known to
have been derived thence.
The non-agnostid trilobites most typical of this epoch, Paradoxides and
blind benthic forms (Hartshillia, Holocephalina) characterize outer-shelf
environments in Wales and elsewhere in Avalonia (southeast Newfound-
land, New Brunswick) and in Baltica and the margins of Gondwana
(Conway Morris & Rushton 1988).
After fissus Biozone times, mudstone deposition prevailed (except locally
in the Comley area of Shropshire). There is a widespread hiatus after
punctuosus Biozone times and before the Merioneth Epoch, the mudstone
succession in the Nuneaton district being the best constrained (Taylor &
Rushton 1972).
In southeast Ireland the marginal basin of Leinster has yielded some
evidence of the St David's Series (Smith 1977, 1981). In Co Wexford (the
Cahore and Ribband Groups) and Co Wicklow (the Bray Group), the
sediments were deposited in deep water (Crimes & Crossley 1968). These
rocks yield trace-fossils, especially Oldhamia, in abundance (Dhonau &
Holland 1974), but acritarchs, in part of St David's age, are the only body-
fossils known; the best preserved are from the Booley Bay Formation
(Ribband Group) at Hook Head on the south coast (Smith 1981). Sediment
was derived from both the southeast (Irish Sea Horst) and the northwest,
where a positive area, possibly a marginal arc, is thought to have provided a
source area.
Less is known of the eastern Caledonide belt to the northeast of the
Midland Platform and facing the Tornquist Sea. The clastic sedimentary
rocks encountered in boreholes in Lincolnshire (Cowie et al. 1972, table 2)
are varied--phyllitic slates, feldspathic sandstones and greywackes--and a
Cambrian age has been suggested, but without adequate faunal control. It is
assumed here that this area was part of a marginal basin that existed
throughout the early Lower Palaeozoic and extended from northern England
into the Brabant area of Belgium where clastic rocks of Comley and St
David's age are known (Vanguestaine 1974, 1978). It is not known whether
the Precambrian of the Charnwood Forest area was emergent; there is some
geophysical evidence to the northeast of Charnwood Forest for the presence
of a post-Charnian, pre-Triassic succession that possibly represents part of
the local Cambrian (Maguire 1987). A positive area in northern Norfolk was
formerly postulated on the presence of supposedly Precambrian volcanic
rocks encountered in the North Creak Borehole, but these are now thought
to be part of the east Midlands Caledonian Belt (Pharaoh et al. 1987).
AWAR
4~2a: Southern British Isles: Merioneth
In Scandinavia the Merioneth Series has been divided into some eight
biozones and thirty subzones, and this scheme can be applied in areas, such
as England and Wales, where the olenid trilobite biofacies is developed. The
interval depicted on the map is the Olenus Biozone and more particularly its
upper part (O. cataractes Subzone).
Deposits formed in England and Wales during the Merioneth Epoch
reflect generally stable tectonic conditions. After a widespread non-sequence
in the late St David's successions (possibly caused by a eustatic regression), a
major new sedimentary cycle commenced, apparently before the end of the
St David's Epoch, in both the Welsh Basin and the English Midlands
(Rushton 1978; Allen et al. 1981).
The Welsh Basin, though deeper at the beginning of the Merioneth Epoch,
was partly filled towards the end of Olenus Biozone times with alterations of
shales and contourite(?) sandstones (upper Maentwrog Formation), and
those beds are overlain by thick shallow-water sandstones (Ffestiniog Flags
Formation, >650m, Allen et al. 1981). There is some evidence in the
Harlech Dome, St Tudwars Peninsula, and in the St David's area, that the
sediments were deposited by currents flowing from the south, as in the St
David's Series. To the north of the Harlech Dome, however, the Merioneth
Series is comparatively attenuated and includes shallow-water quartzitic
sandstones, with trace fossils (Cruziana facies) that appear to have been
derived from the north, though the indices of current orientation give a wide
range of directions (Crimes 1970).
Muddy sediments accumulated over the site of the Midlands Platform and
it is assumed here that these (Outwoods Formation of the Nuneaton Inlier,
with known subsurface extension to the south and west) transgressed the
Precambrian Charnwood Forest massif. The fauna of the Outwoods Forma-
tion includes olenid trilobites that tolerated oxygen-poor environments,
together with a number of other trilobite genera of wide palaeogeographical
distribution that inhabited outer-shelf regions (Rushton 1983).
In the Welsh Borderland the Olenus Biozone is unrepresented, the earliest
representatives of the Merioneth Series being the Orusia Shales (Parabolina
spinulosa Biozone) resting unconformably on Comley and St David's rocks.
However, at Malvern there is a thin sequence of Cyclotron-bearing shales
that are thought to be of Olenus Biozone age. Uplift along the Church
Stretton and Malvern lineaments is suggested by northeastwardly directed
slumps or currents in the Moor Wood Flags Formation of the Nuneaton
area (Taylor & Rushton 1972, p. 22). The derivation ofmicaceous detritus in
the Llangynog area, south Wales, is believed to be from a metamorphic
basement (Pretannia) to the south (Cope & Bassett 1987).
The later Merioneth Epoch, from Parabolina spinulosa Biozone to Peltura
scarabaeoides Biozone times, was dominated by deposition of black mud-
stones in disaerobic environments (Doigeilau, Bentleyford, Monks Park and
White-Leaved-Oak formations). These pyritic, carbonaceous and uranifer-
ous muds contain little or no coarse clastic material and are considered to
represent a period of slow deposition; the proved olenid zones differ from
locality to locality (Thomas et al..1984, p. 15), and the extent of possible
breaks in deposition, comparable with those inferred in the contempor-
aneous rocks in Scandinavia, is not certain. The black mudstones in the
Croft Borehole, Lilleshall (northern Shropshire), are unique in having many
intercalations of current-bedded siltstone and sandstone, presumably of
shallow-water origin (Rushton et al. 1988). The source of the silt-grade
material is not known but is thought to originate from a local uplift along
the Church Stretton Fault complex.
The sedimentary rocks of the southeast Irish marginal basin have poor
biostratigraphical control but include beds referable to the Merioneth Series
(Ribband Group; Smith 1977, 1981). They are argillites and arenites that
appear to have been deposited in deep water. The mudstones and fine-
grained sandstones of the Askingarren Formation, interpreted as underlying
correlatives of the Ribband Group (Crimes & Crossley 1968, pp. 191,207),
are considered as possibly late Cambrian in age. Flute casts indicate
derivation from a southerly quarter. There is no evidence for the continued
existence, into the Merioneth Epoch, of the marginal arc thought to have
existed to the northwest of the southeast Irish marginal basin in St David's
times.
There is no biostratigraphical evidence for the Merioneth Series in the
eastern English Caledonides (see the St David's Series, above).
AWAR
48
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram depicting the palaeogeographical and geotectonic evo-
lution of the SW Southern Uplands during the early Llandovery (as illustrated by
the Rhinns of Galloway and Luce Bay sections). CM, Chippermore Member;
CFM, Cairnie Finnart Member; DPM, Daw Point Member; FBF, Float Bay
Member; GF, Garheugh Formation (with a and b Formations); GPF, Grennan
Point Formation; KF, Kilfillan Formation; MHF; Money Head Formation; SBb,
Striking Bight beds. 1, 2, a, b, etc., represent earlier accreted tectono-stratigraphic
tracts (from Kelling et al. 1987, fig. 13).
Fig. 7. Model for structure of Southern Uplands from Murphy & Hutton (1986.
fig. 3). CB = central belt; SB = southern belt; E - E = approximate level of
erosion.
forming Tract 4 (IV) reached the turbiditic greywacke environment of the
trench in early Llandovery time (e.g. the Pyroxenous Group of Talla and the
Money Head and Kilfillan formations; see Fig. 6A). Keiling et al. (1987,
p. 803) depict the trench environment at this time (Fig. 6). Sequences in the
more southeasterly tracts show that in persculptus/acuminatus times dark
grey graptotitic muds were being deposited in the oceanic regions beyond the
trench. It was not until early turriculatus times and griestoniensis times that
the trench-parallel strips of this ocean floor which now comprise Tracts 5
and 6 respectively of the prism reached the trench environment of greywacke
(Leggett et al. 1979).
Though less clearly exposed, the sequences in the Longford-Down Zone
of Ireland indicate a similar pattern. In the northern tracts, e.g. just
southeast of Orlock Bridge on the east coast, the oldest Silurian rocks,
probably of acuminatus age, are arenaceous greywackes of the Portavo
Formation (Griffith & Wilson 1982, p. 13). Further to the WSW, e.g. at
Strokestown, persculptus-acuminatus deposition was of turbidites and mass-
flow volcaniclastic conglomerates while in acuminatus times basalts were
extruded (Leggett et al. 1979). These might suggest a trench environment,
but without the coarse clastic fans and axial wedges of the central belt of the
Southern Uplands of Scotland. Thus it can be argued that those facies were
advancing southwestward along the trench slope axis but had only just
reached the eastern coast of Ireland by acuminatus times.
To the south, as far probably as Tomgraney (Rickards & Archer 1969),
SILURIAN
the oceanic area was accumulating carbonaceous graptolitic muds and
continued to do so for a further c. 10 Ma. Leggett (1987) claimed that this
supported the existence of the oceanic plate, and thus Iapetus Ocean, until
the Wenlock, but there seems no reason why such deposition could not have
carried on over the continental crust of Murphy & Hutton's 'successor
basin' (Fig. 7) in its early phase (Murphy & Hutton 1986). However,
whether because of a northwestward moving oceanic plate or by south-
eastward facies progradation (Griffith & Wilson 1982, fig. 4), greywacke
appears in the Irish sequences, in sedgwickii Biozone at Coalpit Bay, in
turriculatus Biozone at Tomgraney (Rickards & Archer 1969) and possibly
in the griestoniensis Biozone in the western end of the Slieve Bernagh Inlier
(Plegg, in Leggett et al. 1979). Greywacke and minor flows of basic lava
occur at Slieve Aughty (Emo & Smith 1978), but their ages are not known
precisely.
The alternative views of Murphy & Hutton (1986) and Stone et al. (1987)
are not represented in the accompanying maps. These can account for the
same thrust-imbricate, Ordovician and Silurian submarine fan sequences of
the Southern Uplands (and the Longford-Down Zone), with their south-
eastward overlap of pelagic mud deposits (Moffat Shales), in terms of thin-
skin thrusting of the deposits of a back-arc basin; a basin which had
existed largely undeformed through much of the Ordovician into the early
Llandovery (Stone et al. 1987, fig. 3; Fig. 8). They cite the andesite-rich
composition of some of the greywacke fans and their derivation from the
south as evidence for the existence of a now concealed Ordovician/early
Llandovery active volcanic arc to the south, with a fore-arc basin beyond.
Kelley & Bluck (1989) have more recently suggested that this detritus is of
Cambrian (or earlier) age.
Fig. 8. Back-arc basin model for Southern Uplands (from Stone et aL 1987, fig. 3).
Oblique collision of the Laurentian and Avalonian foreland margins
during the mid-late Llandovery caused cessation of northward subduction
at an island arc and produced instead northward underthrusting with the
adjacent back arc basin. Eventually the postulated arc terrane underthrust
the back-arc basin and the Avalonian foreland underthrust the Laurentian
foreland basin. The contents of the back-arc basin rose as a thin-skin,
southward propagating, thrust stack; the Moffat Shales acted as the decolle-
ment zone and the stack thrust southeastwards, ramping over the arc terrane
during latest Telychian times (Fig. 9).
Fig. 9. Sketch section illustrating the southward migration of the Southern Uplands
thrust stack and initiation of the foreland basin during the late Llandovery Epoch
(from Stone et al. 1987, fig. 5).
Midland Valley of Scotland: south Mayo and north Galway
Northeastward of the accretionary prism (or thrust stack of Stone et al.
(1987)) lay Laurentian continental crust. On this, in the Llandovery, there
was a marine basin forward of an Ordovician volcanic arc, possibly still
active, and behind was a back-arc basin, or inter-arc basin of Bluck (1983;
Fig. 10). According to Bluck the prism (or 'thrust stack') overrode north-
westward much of this Midland Valley terrane in post-Silurian times, thus
49
50
concealing all but the back-arc basin tract lying through the Midland Valley
to south Mayo and north Galway (Fig. 10, ii).
Evidence of the concealed terrane has been found in xenoliths (Upton et
al. 1983) and the northward-transported pebbles of Wenlock conglomerates
in the Midland Valley Silurian inliers (Bluck 1983). Bluck deduced that these
were derived fluvially from a catchment which extended at least 70 km
southward of the Southern Uplands Fault, a distance commensurate with
present trench-arc gaps. This Wenlock 'Cockburnland' (Bluck 1983,
pp. 126-7) probably commenced its emergence at the end of the Llandovery
as a series of islands.
- - - - - MIDLAND VALLEY ~ HIDDEN MIDLAND VALLEY ---
arc
x'7"k a rc fore-arc
interarc ~ 1 basin
. . . . . . . . MIDLAND VALLEY SOUTHERN
! i
Fig. 10. (i) Interarc basin, missing fore-arc basin (beneath Southern Uplands) and
Southern Uplands accretionary prism. (ii) Overthrusting of accretionary prism: 1 =
'igneous conglomerate', 2 = 'quartzite conglomerate', 3 = 'greywacke conglomerate'.
1 and 2 have a source in rock suggested to have been overthrust by the greywackes
of the Southern Uplands (from Bluck 1983).
The back-arc ('interarc') basin of Llandovery times is witnessed in the
rocks of the Midland Valley Silurian inliers including those near Girvan and
in the northern Irish inliers of Pomeroy, Lisbellaw, Charlestown and Clew
Bay in Mayo and Killary Harbour in north Galway. The earliest Silurian
deposits are the persculptus-acuminatus graptolitic muds of Pomeroy. These
follow Ashgill deposits without a break and Rrobably represent the deepest
parts of this basin. To the east at Craighead, northeast of Girvan (Freshney
1959) a marine transgression over Hirnantian rocks was under way in
acuminatus time. Basal deposits of gravel appear to be derived from the
Midland Valley arc to the north and were distributed as channel fills. It is
necessary therefore to invoke an E-W land-ridge of Midland Valley terrane
lying to the north (Bluck 1983) to provide this detritus.
Shelly sands predominated through the early Llandovery at Girvan, but
in convolutus-early sedgwickii times graptolitic muds interrupted this
deposition. Cocks & Toghill (1973) considered these muds to have been deep
water deposits comparable with the Moffat Shales, but they probably record
merely a slight deepening and concomitant marine transgression of coastal
plains, such as was occurring on Avalonia at this time. Shelly muds and
sands returned to the area even in the later part ofsedgwickii time with first a
Lingula-Eocoelia fauna then Pentamerus and finally CIorinda, before thinly
bedded graptolitic sands and muds became established in early turriculatus
(maximus) time. These latter may indeed record some deepening of the sea;
accommodation of sediment here was certainly rapid. Such sedimentation,
considered by Cocks & Toghill to be turbiditic, continued through griesto-
niensis time when purple, red and green mudstones and sandstones were
deposited. Similar conditions at this time are reflected in the other Midland
Valley inliers with palaeocurrent directions from the south in the Hagshaw
Hills and near Lesmahagow, but in the Pentland Hills, where the Haggis
Grit and Conglomerate occurs, palaeocurrents came from the east. The
deposition of this 'conglomerate' may have heralded the Wenlock gravels
which record fluvial infill from an emergent Cockburnland to the south.
Overall it seems unlikely that these Midland Valley reaches of the basin were
ever 'deep' in the Llandovery.
The deep parts of the basin continued to be around Pomeroy and
Lisbellaw where graptolitic muds persisted through sedgwickii and griesto-
niensis times. At Lisbellaw, Harper & Hartley (1938) recorded conglomer-
ates of mid-Llandovery age and likened them to the Caban Conglomerate of
the same age in mid-Wales. Clearly a basin-margin slope existed to the
northwest of Lisbellaw and Pomeroy, for at Charlestown, in Co. Mayo,
sands and calcareous deposits formed during sedgwickii to crenulata times
accompanied by shelly faunas including corals, brachiopods and trilobites.
Similai" conditions prevailed in the extreme west around Killary Harbour
and Clew Bay where basal gravel deposits ofgriestoniensis age overstepped a
Dalradian and Ordovician substrate. In early and mid Llandovery times this
area was land and the gravels were interpreted by Piper (1972) as fluvial,
with westward followed by southward transport. An extrusive keratophyre
was present in places below the gravel, recording volcanicity probably also
SILURIAN
of Llandovery age. The fluvial gravels were overwhelmed eventually by a
marine transgression and succeeded by shallow marine sands and gravels
with the remains of shells including brachiopods. The Gowlaun Conglomer-
ate, considered by Piper (1972) to represent a deep water base-of-slope
deposit, has recently been reinterpreted as a shallow water deposit (Williams
& O'Connor 1987). Thus without the need to accommodate a temporary
deep water environ, strong comparison can be made with the Midland Valley
of Scotland except that in Ireland the Silurian rests partly on the displaced
Dalradian block of Connemara.
RC
Ii
S8a: Northern British Isles: Wenlock (Sheinwoodian)
~ SOUTHERN UPLANDS . . . .
Evidence from the rocks themselves for early Wenlock palaeogeography in
accretionary prism northern Britain is confined to the Southern Belt of the Southern Uplands of
I trench
Scotland and its Irish equivalents in the inliers of Slieve Aughty and Slieve
Bernagh, to the Midland Valley of Scotland, and to the rather separate
western Irish area of south Mayo and north Galway. Otherwise the picture
must be fitted with what has gone before and what follows. Relationship
with southern Britain remains unknown, though, as there have been sugges-
tions that there is considerable similarity between some of the Silurian rocks
in the southern part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland and those in the
Lake District of northern England, these areas may have been in close
proximity.
UPLANDS The Southern Belt of the Southern Uplands contains faulted strips of
Wenlock rocks. Those of mid Sheinwoodian age are graded greywackes,
only occasionally thick and pebbly, siltstones, mudstones, and graptolitic
shales. These Riccarton Beds also yield orthoconic cephalopods. Tool marks
are conspicuous among the sole structures and there are also ripples indica-
ting bottom currents at variance with the axial flow of the turbidity currents.
In the group of faulted inliers of Slieve Aughty, the Derryfadda and
Killanena Formations, found respectively to the north and south, are
broadly of this age as indicated by spores and acritarchs (Emo & Smith
1978). The Derryfadda Formation comprises proximal turbidites associated
with siltstones and mudstones; they are cut by strike faults. The Killanena
Formation is of thinner bedded and finer grained greywackes interbedded
with laminated beds. The situation in the complex of inliers of Slieve
Bernagh, the Broadford Mountains, and the Arra Mountains is still not fully
described in modern terms. Turbidites appear here above the Monograptus
crispus Biozone (Telychian) and continue through the Wenlock.
Anderson & Oliver (1986) have stressed the importance of the Orlock
Bridge-Kingledores Fault, which separates the Northern and Central belts
of the Southern Uplands of Scotland and their equivalents in Ireland.
Hutton & Murphy (1987) have suggested that the northerly sedimentary
source customarily referred to as Cockburnland has been lost at this time by
sinistral strike-slip displacement along this fault.
Several of the Silurian inliers of the Midland Valley of Scotland (Lesma-
hagow, Hagshaw Hills, Carmichael, Pentland Hills) show a regressive
sequence above marine Llandovery beds. Above the various conglomerates
which, except at Lesmahagow, mark the base of the Wenlock, there are
arenaceous beds with some red sediments and horizons rich in fossil fish.
These coarser Wenlock deposits are seen as alluvial fans derived from a lost
source to the southeast.
The Louisberg-Clare Island succession in south Mayo shows cross-
stratified pebbly sandstones, which Phillips (1974) showed to be derived
from the northwest. There is evidence of fluvial channels. Separated from the
above by faulting, and metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies, the
Croagh Patrick sequence is of shallow water, marine sediments. Farther
south in the country from Killary Harbour to Lough Mask, the Lettergesh
Formation is of Sheinwoodian age and has actually yielded Monograptus
riccartonensis at one level. The formation represents the maximum trans-
gression here. Poorly sorted sandstones with conglomerates, breccias, and
silty mudstones were deposited from turbidity currents.
CHH
PRiDOLI
The earlier Silurian initiation of progradation of terrestrial sediments across
marine areas of the British Isles led to the continually progressive and
dominant establishment of non-marine depositional regimes through P~idoli
times. By the end of this interval, only present-day areas of southeastern-
most England remained open to fully marine influences from the south and
southeast, although much of the former Welsh Borderland-Midlands plat-
form was susceptible to short-lived, periodic flooding by the marginal sea
until well into the Pfidoli. Alluvial processes of erosion and deposition were
persistent to the west and north, leading to the diachronous spread of Old
Red Sandstone magnafacies from those general directions. Although the
Iapetus Ocean was probably closed well before the Pfidoli Epoch (e.g.
Picketing et al. 1988), and there is no evidence of any remaining marine
separation between northern and southern Britain at this time, the precise
relative positions of the two regions remain uncertain. Sinistral transpres-
sional convergence continued throughout the Pfidoli and later (Soper et al.
1987), so that it is unlikely that there was any direct north-south relation-
ship and continuation of drainage and depositional systems between the two
areas that are now adjacent on opposite sides of the sutural zone.
Background references to stratigraphical successions of P~idoli age, and
their correlation, are given by Bassett et al. (1982), White & Lawson (1989),
14 CAMBRIAN
Massif or on its margins. The Cambrian of Nuneaton accumulated to the
southwest of this Charnian Massif. Coastal Hartshill Formation sandstones
(cycle l, thick), through to condensed shallow water, shelly Hyolithes
limestones (cycle 2, thin) and deeper water Mn-rich shales (cycle 3, thick)
exhibit a trend reciprocal with that of Shropshire and close to that of the
Avalon succession, SE Newfoundland. The nearby Lickey Quartzites are
lithologically similar but are of uncertain age. The former presence of
limestones is suggested by clasts in the Permian Nechells Breccia (Brasier &
Hewitt 1981).
The Withycombe Farm borehole near Banbury, Oxfordshire, gives an
indication of conditions to the east of the Malverns. Volcanic basement of
presumed late Precambrian age is there overlain by the Withycombe Forma-
tion, a relatively thick sequence of sandstones bearing trace fossils (cf. cycle
l) passing up into a thick succession of offshore shales with Aldanella sp.,
Watsonella sp., Platysolenites antiquissimus, Orthotheca cylindrica and Lon-
tova-type acritarchs (Rushton & Molyneux 1990). This invites compari-
son with the Chapel Island Formation (cycle 1) or lower Bonavista Forma-
tion (cycle 2) of southeast Newfoundland, both of attleborensis age.
MDB
E~lb: Southern British Isles: St David's
The St David's Series is equivalent to the Middle Cambrian of European
usage, but not necessarily equivalent to that of other regions such as
Australia, China or North America. The Series is subdivided according to
the Swedish zonal scheme, with a lower, a middle and an upper part. In the
Welsh Basin the lower part is represented mainly by thick turbiditic
sandstone successions; in Shropshire by thinner glauconitic sandstones and
mudstones, and in the English Midlands by mudstones. Biostratigraphical
control is generally poor and correlation insecure (Cowie et al. 1972;
Rushton 1974).
Faunal control is better in the middle part of the Series, where the
following biozones are used:
Ptychagnostus punctuosus Biozone,
Hypagnostus parvifrons Biozone,
Tomagnostus fissus Biozone,
Ptychagnostus gibbus Biozone.
The gibbus Biozone appears to represent a widespread transgression,
possibly related to a eustatic sea-level rise (Rowell et al. 1982, p 176), but
that zone is not easily recognized in Britain. The overlyingfissus Biozone is
more widely recognized and this interval, for which correlation is more
secure, is represented on the map.
In the Shropshire area glauconitic sandstones and calcareous beds were
deposited in shallow water, and Cobbold (1927) demonstrated a local
unconformity indicative of uplift along the Church Stretton fault zone at
about this time. The absence of the St David's Series in the Malvern and
Lilleshall areas (Rushton et al. 1988) implies similar uplift, but with less
certainty.
The Midlands Platform carries a thin sequence of variegated mudstones
deposited below wave-base (Abbey Shales, three biozones represented,
< 40 m thick in total). The fauna is dominated by agnostid trilobites and
small brachiopods. Similar but thicker successions (c. 200 m total?) occur
in southwest Wales and also in North Wales, though there the mudstone
sequence is underlain by turbiditic sandstones offissus age (the Gamlan and
Caered formations) that show evidence of derivation from a southerly
source (Crimes 1970). This implies a positive area to supply sediment to
north Wales whilst by-passing the St David's area in the southwest. The
presence of bentonite beds indicates contemporaneous volcanic activity,
though the location of the activity is unknown.
There is no evidence for the St David's Series north of the Harlech Dome
and St Tudwal's Peninsula, and it is assumed that the Irish Sea Horst was a
positive area; nevertheless, no contemporaneous sediments are known to
have been derived thence.
The non-agnostid trilobites most typical of this epoch, Paradoxides and
blind benthic forms (Hartshillia, Holocephalina) characterize outer-shelf
environments in Wales and elsewhere in Avalonia (southeast Newfound-
land, New Brunswick) and in Baltica and the margins of Gondwana
(Conway Morris & Rushton 1988).
After fissus Biozone times, mudstone deposition prevailed (except locally
in the Comley area of Shropshire). There is a widespread hiatus after
punctuosus Biozone times and before the Merioneth Epoch, the mudstone
succession in the Nuneaton district being the best constrained (Taylor &
Rushton 1972).
In southeast Ireland the marginal basin of Leinster has yielded some
evidence of the St David's Series (Smith 1977, 1981). In Co Wexford (the
Cahore and Ribband Groups) and Co Wicklow (the Bray Group), the
sediments were deposited in deep water (Crimes & Crossley 1968). These
rocks yield trace-fossils, especially Oldhamia, in abundance (Dhonau &
Holland 1974), but acritarchs, in part of St David's age, are the only body-
fossils known; the best preserved are from the Booley Bay Formation
(Ribband Group) at Hook Head on the south coast (Smith 1981). Sediment
was derived from both the southeast (Irish Sea Horst) and the northwest,
where a positive area, possibly a marginal arc, is thought to have provided a
source area.
Less is known of the eastern Caledonide belt to the northeast of the
Midland Platform and facing the Tornquist Sea. The clastic sedimentary
rocks encountered in boreholes in Lincolnshire (Cowie et al. 1972, table 2)
are varied--phyllitic slates, feldspathic sandstones and greywackes--and a
Cambrian age has been suggested, but without adequate faunal control. It is
assumed here that this area was part of a marginal basin that existed
throughout the early Lower Palaeozoic and extended from northern England
into the Brabant area of Belgium where clastic rocks of Comley and St
David's age are known (Vanguestaine 1974, 1978). It is not known whether
the Precambrian of the Charnwood Forest area was emergent; there is some
geophysical evidence to the northeast of Charnwood Forest for the presence
of a post-Charnian, pre-Triassic succession that possibly represents part of
the local Cambrian (Maguire 1987). A positive area in northern Norfolk was
formerly postulated on the presence of supposedly Precambrian volcanic
rocks encountered in the North Creak Borehole, but these are now thought
to be part of the east Midlands Caledonian Belt (Pharaoh et al. 1987).
AWAR
4~2a: Southern British Isles: Merioneth
In Scandinavia the Merioneth Series has been divided into some eight
biozones and thirty subzones, and this scheme can be applied in areas, such
as England and Wales, where the olenid trilobite biofacies is developed. The
interval depicted on the map is the Olenus Biozone and more particularly its
upper part (O. cataractes Subzone).
Deposits formed in England and Wales during the Merioneth Epoch
reflect generally stable tectonic conditions. After a widespread non-sequence
in the late St David's successions (possibly caused by a eustatic regression), a
major new sedimentary cycle commenced, apparently before the end of the
St David's Epoch, in both the Welsh Basin and the English Midlands
(Rushton 1978; Allen et al. 1981).
The Welsh Basin, though deeper at the beginning of the Merioneth Epoch,
was partly filled towards the end of Olenus Biozone times with alterations of
shales and contourite(?) sandstones (upper Maentwrog Formation), and
those beds are overlain by thick shallow-water sandstones (Ffestiniog Flags
Formation, >650m, Allen et al. 1981). There is some evidence in the
Harlech Dome, St Tudwars Peninsula, and in the St David's area, that the
sediments were deposited by currents flowing from the south, as in the St
David's Series. To the north of the Harlech Dome, however, the Merioneth
Series is comparatively attenuated and includes shallow-water quartzitic
sandstones, with trace fossils (Cruziana facies) that appear to have been
derived from the north, though the indices of current orientation give a wide
range of directions (Crimes 1970).
Muddy sediments accumulated over the site of the Midlands Platform and
it is assumed here that these (Outwoods Formation of the Nuneaton Inlier,
with known subsurface extension to the south and west) transgressed the
Precambrian Charnwood Forest massif. The fauna of the Outwoods Forma-
tion includes olenid trilobites that tolerated oxygen-poor environments,
together with a number of other trilobite genera of wide palaeogeographical
distribution that inhabited outer-shelf regions (Rushton 1983).
In the Welsh Borderland the Olenus Biozone is unrepresented, the earliest
representatives of the Merioneth Series being the Orusia Shales (Parabolina
spinulosa Biozone) resting unconformably on Comley and St David's rocks.
However, at Malvern there is a thin sequence of Cyclotron-bearing shales
that are thought to be of Olenus Biozone age. Uplift along the Church
Stretton and Malvern lineaments is suggested by northeastwardly directed
slumps or currents in the Moor Wood Flags Formation of the Nuneaton
area (Taylor & Rushton 1972, p. 22). The derivation ofmicaceous detritus in
the Llangynog area, south Wales, is believed to be from a metamorphic
basement (Pretannia) to the south (Cope & Bassett 1987).
The later Merioneth Epoch, from Parabolina spinulosa Biozone to Peltura
scarabaeoides Biozone times, was dominated by deposition of black mud-
stones in disaerobic environments (Doigeilau, Bentleyford, Monks Park and
White-Leaved-Oak formations). These pyritic, carbonaceous and uranifer-
ous muds contain little or no coarse clastic material and are considered to
represent a period of slow deposition; the proved olenid zones differ from
locality to locality (Thomas et al..1984, p. 15), and the extent of possible
breaks in deposition, comparable with those inferred in the contempor-
aneous rocks in Scandinavia, is not certain. The black mudstones in the
Croft Borehole, Lilleshall (northern Shropshire), are unique in having many
intercalations of current-bedded siltstone and sandstone, presumably of
shallow-water origin (Rushton et al. 1988). The source of the silt-grade
material is not known but is thought to originate from a local uplift along
the Church Stretton Fault complex.
The sedimentary rocks of the southeast Irish marginal basin have poor
biostratigraphical control but include beds referable to the Merioneth Series
(Ribband Group; Smith 1977, 1981). They are argillites and arenites that
appear to have been deposited in deep water. The mudstones and fine-
grained sandstones of the Askingarren Formation, interpreted as underlying
correlatives of the Ribband Group (Crimes & Crossley 1968, pp. 191,207),
are considered as possibly late Cambrian in age. Flute casts indicate
derivation from a southerly quarter. There is no evidence for the continued
existence, into the Merioneth Epoch, of the marginal arc thought to have
existed to the northwest of the southeast Irish marginal basin in St David's
times.
There is no biostratigraphical evidence for the Merioneth Series in the
eastern English Caledonides (see the St David's Series, above).
AWAR
52 SILURIAN
Cocks et al. (1971), and House et al. (1977). The first two of these
publications also give details of environmental developments, especially for
the earlier P~idoli, so that only subsequent or additional sources of reference
are quoted here.
MGB
S8b: Southern British Isles: earliest Pfidoli
Across the Welsh Borderland-Midlands platform and into eastern to south-
central Wales the correlation of early P~idoli strata is reasonably well
constrained by the presence of an ostracode assemblage that includes
Frostiella groenvalliana and species of Londinia and Nodibeyrichia, together
with conodonts and thelodonts that are also of limited vertical range. The
accompanying presence of relict Ludlow shelly macrofaunas testifies to a
continuing marginal marine influence, whilst at the same time the increased
occurrence of freshwater fishes, vascular land plants, and spores, accom-
panied by a sharp fall in the earlier dominance of marine microplankton
(e.g. acritarchs) is indicative of the pulsatory encroachment of closely
adjacent land areas. The transition from fully marine through quasi-marine
facies during this interval went hand in hand with the inversion of the
depositional basin, which had commenced similarly in earlier Silurian times
and was to reach a climax in Acadian shortening during the early-mid
Devonian.
Following latest Ludlow regressive shallowing, the Ludlow Bone Bed
Member at the base of the Downton Group in the Welsh Borderland
represents an initial brief and temporary interval of renewed shallow marine
transgression, in which the bone accumulations formed lag concentrates
distributed widely across retreating strands. Local evidence of hummocky
cross stratification in immediately overlying Downton beds suggests that
storm processes were active in shoreface environments showing little or no
evidence of tidal influence, in water depths of only a few metres (Smith &
Ainsworth 1989); reduction in salinity is also inferred from the accom-
panying restriction of faunas. Slightly higher beds in the Downton Castle
Sandstone Formation across the platform are dominantly fine sandstones
with interbedded siltstones and mudstones; the facies are probably subtidal,
passing yet higher into thicker sand facies with structures indicative of
vigorous wave action in intertidal and inshore zones (Allen 1985, p. 92).
These complexes were deposited as early Pfidoli sand shoals that occupied a
minimum area of some t2 000 km 2, and the diversity of transport directions
may point to more than one source area. Local easterly coarsening in the
Midlands (Gornal Sandstone facies) suggests near shore environments with
derivation from the east or southeast. Other sources on the platform suggest
westerly transport vectors, possibly in part from local highs in the remnant
Welsh trough (Allen 1985, fig. 3), but probably too from yet farther to the
west and northwest where direct evidence of P~idoli beds is lacking; how-
ever, there is no reason to doubt that areas such as the Irish Sea platform
were positive suppliers of sediment at this time. Although impersistent bone
beds are present locally along the eastern margins of the Welsh trough (e.g.
Holland & Williams 1985) they are absent in the central axis where
deposition was apparently continuous from the Ludlow to the Downton and
where non-marine facies did not become dominant finally until slightly later
than on the bounding platform areas. In immediately post-groenvalliana
Biozone times, the sea in the Welsh area had probably shrunk to a small
central remnant, with tidal sand shoals and extensive mud fiats to the east.
At the southern margin of the Welsh trough, early Pfidoli highly mica-
ceous, coarse shelly arenites of the Long Quarry Formation (Tilestones)
represent high energy, open shoreface and barrier sands derived from
alluvial plains developed on the planated metamorphic basement of
Pretannia to the south (Cope & Bassett 1987). Old Red Sandstone facies
of southwest Wales (low-middle Milford Haven Group) accumulated on
coastal mud fiats flooded periodically by the sea, but at times scoured by
rivers and with local alluvial fans fed from either the south or southeast;
reworking of older Silurian sources and of basement complexes were both
involved (Allen & Williams 1978). Yet farther to the west, in Ireland, there is
only limited evidence for P~idoli beds, but terrestrial red bed facies fairly
certainly persisted throughout the epoch (e.g. Holland 1979; Doran et al.
1973). The thick Dingle Group of southwest Ireland, comprising coarse
arenites and rudites of alluvial origins, is apparently conformable on Ludlow
beds (Holland 1987).
Direct marine connections northwards from the Wales-Welsh Borderland
area probably persisted in earliest P~idoli times to the Lake District, where
the lower Scout Hill Flags bear a groenvalliana Biozone fauna in siltstones,
mudstones and fine sandstones derived in part from the north. Similar
definitive evidence of age is lacking in areas to the east and southeast of the
Midlands platform, although limited data from the subsurface suggests that
marginal marine sedimentation persisted there as shoals and bars, with more
open marine environments beyond, across southeasternmost England.
MGB
$9: All British Isles: mid Pfidoli
Biostratigraphical data for identifying younger P~'idoli strata across the
British Isles are sparse, although limited evidence is available from fish
faunas and there is growing potential from the use of sporomorphs (e.g.
Richardson & McGregor 1986; Richardson & Edwards 1989). Mid Pfidoli
equivalents fall within sporomorph Biozone A (see Richardson & Edwards
1989, fig. 152), taken here within the Ledbury Formation of the Downton
Group and its correlatives, somewhat below the level of the Townsend Tuff;
the latter horizon forms a useful lithostratigraphical datum across much of
southern Wales and the Welsh Borderland (Allen & Williams 1981, 1982),
lying within the upper part of the Pfidoli rather than at the base of the
Devonian (Bassett 1984, p. 301; cf. Allen & Williams 1981).
Periodic marine incursions continued to influence sedimentation across
much of southern England and Wales throughout mid P[idoli times. Spora-
dic accumulations of bone bed strands that persist well into the Downton
Group (e.g. Temeside Bone Bed; Antia 1981) are absent in the Ledbury
Formation, where sediments are dominated by thick mudstones with fine
siltstones and sandstones. Lingulacean brachiopods and bivalve molluscs
(e.g. Allen 1973) reflect the marginal marine episodes of flooding across
extensive, featureless mudflats that were partly intertidal and partly river
influenced (Allen 1985). Drifted plant debris and articulated vertebrates
become increasingly common upwards through the sequence. Widespread
developments of pedogenic carbonates (calcretes) indicate the formation of
stable geomorphic surfaces that were starved of fluvial input for periods of
some 104 years (Allen 1974), and they also suggest a relatively hot climate
with comparatively low seasonal rainfall. Deposition across the alluvial
plains was cyclical, with repeated incursions of gravels both from major
stream systems derived from distant uplands and also from minor systems of
ephemeral drainage developed on slightly elevated interfluves between the
principal rivers (Allen 1964; Allen & Williams 1979). These later Downton
Group sediments thus record a considerable enlargement of quasi-marine to
non-marine environments established in earlier Pfidoli times (Allen 1985,
p. 94).
To the north of the former Welsh Basin there is no evidence of continued
marine connection northwards. The Traeth Bach Beds of Anglesey, possibly
of mid Pfidoli age, include calcretes within arenites and rudites that may
have been derived in part from local fault scarps to the southeast (Allen
1965), although the regional palaeoslope and drainage pattern was fairly
certainly persistently from the northwest. Across southwest Wales the
Pfidoli alluvial systems developed partly in a major west-east aligned valley
complex (Allen & Williams 1982; Allen 1985, fig. 3), with sediment input
from both the north and south. The whole of Ireland was probably by now
the site of continuous alluvial red bed facies and erosive systems, with
deposition of the Dingle Group in the southwest continuing throughout this
interval (Holland 1979; Doran et al. 1973; Horne 1974).
The only evidence of more open marine conditions in the post-early
Pfidoli of Britain is across southern England, where micaceous sandstones
and siltstones in the subsurface at Little Missenden formed probably as
subtidal sand sheets with a restricted shelly fauna. Similar sediments occur at
Lakenheath and Soham, although there are no faunal/floral data to confirm
the age. As in the earlier P?idoli, an open marine connection to the southeast
is indicated. By the end of Pfidoli times the marginal marine influence across
the former Welsh trough and its bounding platform areas had ceased, and
instead fluvial sedimentation then became ubiquitous.
In northern Britain, biostratigraphical data that permit precise recog-
nition of Pfidoli ages in successions are even more sparse than to the south.
However, recent geochronological studies (Thirlwall 1988) have radically
changed the stratigraphical assignment of some of the Old Red Sandstone
deposits in Scotland; a good deal of the red terrestrial sediment assumed
previously to be of Devonian age is now known to be Silurian, and some
basins active in mid P~'idoli times were initiated late in the Wenlock.
Whilst most of the Grampian block has cooling ages of >425 Ma, rocks
alongside the Great Glen Fault have cooling ages going down to 385 Ma,
and here as well as in the northern Highlands there are many cooling ages
between 420 and 400 Ma, suggesting that the mid Pi'idoli was a time of
substantial uplift in both these areas. In northern Scotland there was uplift
along the Moine Thrust in early Ludlow times, so that most of the ground to
the east of that structure was then undergoing elevation and must have
provided a substantial source of sediment for any basins that may have been
forming contemporaneously.
In addition, numerous granitoid intrusions are recorded from the
Dalradian block to the southeast of the steep belt. These are thought to be
high-level plutons that may have been associated with lavas. One plutonic
complex occurs within the steep belt and near an area of uplift at Findhorn,
and far in the southwest the Ross of Mull granite is of Pi'idoli age. There are
a number of intrusions within the Midland Valley, including Distinkhorn,
Tinto, and diorite intrusions in the Ocl:fil Hills. Contemporaneous lavas are
also dated from the Pentland Hills and from Fife, so the Midland Valley is
seen as a magmatic province with lavas > 3 km thick. Although there are
lava flows over much of the Midland Valley, two major centres are
developed, in the OchiI-Sidlaw Hills and in the Pentlands; these lavas,
accompanied by agglomerates and tufts, range from rhyolites, dacites and
andesites to basalts.
Intrusive rocks also occur along the northern edge of the Southern
Uplands at Carsphairn, Cockburn Law, and Priestlaw, although it is not
known whether they were accompanied by lavas.
The earliest sedimentary basin in the north is at the southwest end of the
Great Glen Fault near Oban. This basin originated in the late Wenlock with
an early fill of coarse clastic sediment. By mid Pfidoli times the whole basin
was covered with lavas of the Lorne plateau, although these are mainly or
wholly of Ludlow age.
In the Midland Valley, palynological data from the Stonehaven Group
indicate that the beds are probably of late Wenlock age (Marshall 1989) and
not within the Pfidoli or younger as assumed previously. There is probably a
53
54 SILURIAN
stratigraphical break between these beds and overlying units of the Lower
Old Red Sandstone (e.g. D u n n o t t a r and Crawton groups), which may well
span all or part of the Pfidoli Series, although no precise dating is yet
available. These post-Stonehaven units contain boulder-bearing conglomer-
ates tfiat were discharged from the northeast. The conglomerates contain
clasts of quartzite, greywacke, a variety of granites, and other intrusives--
but almost always present are the abundant and varied lava clasts. The
quartzites and some of the porphyries are well rounded, the former being
polycyclic. Lavas occur within the sequence, one being associated with
slumping and possible contemporaneous faulting; others form useful strati-
graphical markers, as at Crawton. Haughton (1988) has shown that some
conglomerates of this age were derived from the southeast and are typified
by the presence of a b u n d a n t greywacke clasts and granites, whose age and
chemistry differs from those derived from the northwest and northeast; this
indicates that the source was a previously unsuspected greywacke pile (of
Ordovician age) in the centre of the Midland Valley.
Elsewhere in the northern region of the Midland Valley there are
abundant lavas and lava-bearing conglomerates. Some of these overlie the
Lintrathen ignimbrite and could well be of mid Pfidoli age. Intrusions such
as those at Comrie may have been associated with lavas at higher structural
levels.
Basins were also developing in the southern Midland Valley at this time.
The distinctive Greywacke Conglomerate, with clasts dominated by grey-
wacke, is cut by felsites and also contains felsite clasts; both felsites resemble
that at Tinto, so the conglomerate is thought to be contemporaneous. The
greywacke clasts do not have a composition compatible with a source in the
Southern Uplands, and often show a dispersal direction towards the south-
west; their provenance remains uncertain.
A prominent conglomerate succession developed in the eastern Southern
Uplands is cut by lamprophyre dykes of 395 Ma or older. The age of the
conglomerates is uncertain, but some may fall within the mid P[idoli
interval; they are of local derivation and are dispersed towards the north-
west.
MGB, BJB
Acknowledgements. The assistance of the following in compilation of this section is
gratefully acknowledged: S. G. D. Campbell, J. R. L. Allen, D. R. Atkins, R. J.
Bailey, K. E. S. Bradfield, L. Cherns, L. R. M. Cocks, J. R. Davies, R. Evans, C. J.
N. Fletcher, B. A. Hains, M. Leng, L. M. Ellis, R. Marsh, A. J. Reedman, R. B.
Rickards, A. W. A. Rushton, M. Scott, J. T. Temple, E. V. Tucker, S. P. Tunnicliff,
P. T. Warren, D. E. White, N. J. Woodcock, J. Zalasiewicz, S. G. Molyneux and M.
F. Howells.
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14 CAMBRIAN
Massif or on its margins. The Cambrian of Nuneaton accumulated to the
southwest of this Charnian Massif. Coastal Hartshill Formation sandstones
(cycle l, thick), through to condensed shallow water, shelly Hyolithes
limestones (cycle 2, thin) and deeper water Mn-rich shales (cycle 3, thick)
exhibit a trend reciprocal with that of Shropshire and close to that of the
Avalon succession, SE Newfoundland. The nearby Lickey Quartzites are
lithologically similar but are of uncertain age. The former presence of
limestones is suggested by clasts in the Permian Nechells Breccia (Brasier &
Hewitt 1981).
The Withycombe Farm borehole near Banbury, Oxfordshire, gives an
indication of conditions to the east of the Malverns. Volcanic basement of
presumed late Precambrian age is there overlain by the Withycombe Forma-
tion, a relatively thick sequence of sandstones bearing trace fossils (cf. cycle
l) passing up into a thick succession of offshore shales with Aldanella sp.,
Watsonella sp., Platysolenites antiquissimus, Orthotheca cylindrica and Lon-
tova-type acritarchs (Rushton & Molyneux 1990). This invites compari-
son with the Chapel Island Formation (cycle 1) or lower Bonavista Forma-
tion (cycle 2) of southeast Newfoundland, both of attleborensis age.
MDB
E~lb: Southern British Isles: St David's
The St David's Series is equivalent to the Middle Cambrian of European
usage, but not necessarily equivalent to that of other regions such as
Australia, China or North America. The Series is subdivided according to
the Swedish zonal scheme, with a lower, a middle and an upper part. In the
Welsh Basin the lower part is represented mainly by thick turbiditic
sandstone successions; in Shropshire by thinner glauconitic sandstones and
mudstones, and in the English Midlands by mudstones. Biostratigraphical
control is generally poor and correlation insecure (Cowie et al. 1972;
Rushton 1974).
Faunal control is better in the middle part of the Series, where the
following biozones are used:
Ptychagnostus punctuosus Biozone,
Hypagnostus parvifrons Biozone,
Tomagnostus fissus Biozone,
Ptychagnostus gibbus Biozone.
The gibbus Biozone appears to represent a widespread transgression,
possibly related to a eustatic sea-level rise (Rowell et al. 1982, p 176), but
that zone is not easily recognized in Britain. The overlyingfissus Biozone is
more widely recognized and this interval, for which correlation is more
secure, is represented on the map.
In the Shropshire area glauconitic sandstones and calcareous beds were
deposited in shallow water, and Cobbold (1927) demonstrated a local
unconformity indicative of uplift along the Church Stretton fault zone at
about this time. The absence of the St David's Series in the Malvern and
Lilleshall areas (Rushton et al. 1988) implies similar uplift, but with less
certainty.
The Midlands Platform carries a thin sequence of variegated mudstones
deposited below wave-base (Abbey Shales, three biozones represented,
< 40 m thick in total). The fauna is dominated by agnostid trilobites and
small brachiopods. Similar but thicker successions (c. 200 m total?) occur
in southwest Wales and also in North Wales, though there the mudstone
sequence is underlain by turbiditic sandstones offissus age (the Gamlan and
Caered formations) that show evidence of derivation from a southerly
source (Crimes 1970). This implies a positive area to supply sediment to
north Wales whilst by-passing the St David's area in the southwest. The
presence of bentonite beds indicates contemporaneous volcanic activity,
though the location of the activity is unknown.
There is no evidence for the St David's Series north of the Harlech Dome
and St Tudwal's Peninsula, and it is assumed that the Irish Sea Horst was a
positive area; nevertheless, no contemporaneous sediments are known to
have been derived thence.
The non-agnostid trilobites most typical of this epoch, Paradoxides and
blind benthic forms (Hartshillia, Holocephalina) characterize outer-shelf
environments in Wales and elsewhere in Avalonia (southeast Newfound-
land, New Brunswick) and in Baltica and the margins of Gondwana
(Conway Morris & Rushton 1988).
After fissus Biozone times, mudstone deposition prevailed (except locally
in the Comley area of Shropshire). There is a widespread hiatus after
punctuosus Biozone times and before the Merioneth Epoch, the mudstone
succession in the Nuneaton district being the best constrained (Taylor &
Rushton 1972).
In southeast Ireland the marginal basin of Leinster has yielded some
evidence of the St David's Series (Smith 1977, 1981). In Co Wexford (the
Cahore and Ribband Groups) and Co Wicklow (the Bray Group), the
sediments were deposited in deep water (Crimes & Crossley 1968). These
rocks yield trace-fossils, especially Oldhamia, in abundance (Dhonau &
Holland 1974), but acritarchs, in part of St David's age, are the only body-
fossils known; the best preserved are from the Booley Bay Formation
(Ribband Group) at Hook Head on the south coast (Smith 1981). Sediment
was derived from both the southeast (Irish Sea Horst) and the northwest,
where a positive area, possibly a marginal arc, is thought to have provided a
source area.
Less is known of the eastern Caledonide belt to the northeast of the
Midland Platform and facing the Tornquist Sea. The clastic sedimentary
rocks encountered in boreholes in Lincolnshire (Cowie et al. 1972, table 2)
are varied--phyllitic slates, feldspathic sandstones and greywackes--and a
Cambrian age has been suggested, but without adequate faunal control. It is
assumed here that this area was part of a marginal basin that existed
throughout the early Lower Palaeozoic and extended from northern England
into the Brabant area of Belgium where clastic rocks of Comley and St
David's age are known (Vanguestaine 1974, 1978). It is not known whether
the Precambrian of the Charnwood Forest area was emergent; there is some
geophysical evidence to the northeast of Charnwood Forest for the presence
of a post-Charnian, pre-Triassic succession that possibly represents part of
the local Cambrian (Maguire 1987). A positive area in northern Norfolk was
formerly postulated on the presence of supposedly Precambrian volcanic
rocks encountered in the North Creak Borehole, but these are now thought
to be part of the east Midlands Caledonian Belt (Pharaoh et al. 1987).
AWAR
4~2a: Southern British Isles: Merioneth
In Scandinavia the Merioneth Series has been divided into some eight
biozones and thirty subzones, and this scheme can be applied in areas, such
as England and Wales, where the olenid trilobite biofacies is developed. The
interval depicted on the map is the Olenus Biozone and more particularly its
upper part (O. cataractes Subzone).
Deposits formed in England and Wales during the Merioneth Epoch
reflect generally stable tectonic conditions. After a widespread non-sequence
in the late St David's successions (possibly caused by a eustatic regression), a
major new sedimentary cycle commenced, apparently before the end of the
St David's Epoch, in both the Welsh Basin and the English Midlands
(Rushton 1978; Allen et al. 1981).
The Welsh Basin, though deeper at the beginning of the Merioneth Epoch,
was partly filled towards the end of Olenus Biozone times with alterations of
shales and contourite(?) sandstones (upper Maentwrog Formation), and
those beds are overlain by thick shallow-water sandstones (Ffestiniog Flags
Formation, >650m, Allen et al. 1981). There is some evidence in the
Harlech Dome, St Tudwars Peninsula, and in the St David's area, that the
sediments were deposited by currents flowing from the south, as in the St
David's Series. To the north of the Harlech Dome, however, the Merioneth
Series is comparatively attenuated and includes shallow-water quartzitic
sandstones, with trace fossils (Cruziana facies) that appear to have been
derived from the north, though the indices of current orientation give a wide
range of directions (Crimes 1970).
Muddy sediments accumulated over the site of the Midlands Platform and
it is assumed here that these (Outwoods Formation of the Nuneaton Inlier,
with known subsurface extension to the south and west) transgressed the
Precambrian Charnwood Forest massif. The fauna of the Outwoods Forma-
tion includes olenid trilobites that tolerated oxygen-poor environments,
together with a number of other trilobite genera of wide palaeogeographical
distribution that inhabited outer-shelf regions (Rushton 1983).
In the Welsh Borderland the Olenus Biozone is unrepresented, the earliest
representatives of the Merioneth Series being the Orusia Shales (Parabolina
spinulosa Biozone) resting unconformably on Comley and St David's rocks.
However, at Malvern there is a thin sequence of Cyclotron-bearing shales
that are thought to be of Olenus Biozone age. Uplift along the Church
Stretton and Malvern lineaments is suggested by northeastwardly directed
slumps or currents in the Moor Wood Flags Formation of the Nuneaton
area (Taylor & Rushton 1972, p. 22). The derivation ofmicaceous detritus in
the Llangynog area, south Wales, is believed to be from a metamorphic
basement (Pretannia) to the south (Cope & Bassett 1987).
The later Merioneth Epoch, from Parabolina spinulosa Biozone to Peltura
scarabaeoides Biozone times, was dominated by deposition of black mud-
stones in disaerobic environments (Doigeilau, Bentleyford, Monks Park and
White-Leaved-Oak formations). These pyritic, carbonaceous and uranifer-
ous muds contain little or no coarse clastic material and are considered to
represent a period of slow deposition; the proved olenid zones differ from
locality to locality (Thomas et al..1984, p. 15), and the extent of possible
breaks in deposition, comparable with those inferred in the contempor-
aneous rocks in Scandinavia, is not certain. The black mudstones in the
Croft Borehole, Lilleshall (northern Shropshire), are unique in having many
intercalations of current-bedded siltstone and sandstone, presumably of
shallow-water origin (Rushton et al. 1988). The source of the silt-grade
material is not known but is thought to originate from a local uplift along
the Church Stretton Fault complex.
The sedimentary rocks of the southeast Irish marginal basin have poor
biostratigraphical control but include beds referable to the Merioneth Series
(Ribband Group; Smith 1977, 1981). They are argillites and arenites that
appear to have been deposited in deep water. The mudstones and fine-
grained sandstones of the Askingarren Formation, interpreted as underlying
correlatives of the Ribband Group (Crimes & Crossley 1968, pp. 191,207),
are considered as possibly late Cambrian in age. Flute casts indicate
derivation from a southerly quarter. There is no evidence for the continued
existence, into the Merioneth Epoch, of the marginal arc thought to have
existed to the northwest of the southeast Irish marginal basin in St David's
times.
There is no biostratigraphical evidence for the Merioneth Series in the
eastern English Caledonides (see the St David's Series, above).
AWAR
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