THE STRATIGRAPHY AND STRUCTURE OF PART OF THE SOUTH-EAST DURHAM COALFIELD

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Abstract
Summary: During the last few years, a geologically little known area of south-east Durham, lying between the worked area of the Durham coalfield and the West Hartlepool Fault, has been explored by a gravity survey and a series of boreholes, with a view to the possible siting of a new coal mine. This work has proved an extension of the Durham coalfield, lying in a downfolded area beneath Permian rocks and fairly thick glacial deposits in the neighbourhood of Dalton Piercy. Some thirty million tons of coal are probably present in seams in the communis Zone of the Durham Coal Measures, but these are unlikely to be economically workable at the present time. The six new bore-holes have been correlated with earlier boreholes in the Fishburn area to the west and with shafts and boreholes, including two of the recent offshore bore-holes, to the north and east. Additional data obtained from the cores of the Permian rocks have augmented earlier work and led to a clearer understanding of some outstanding problems, in particular the position within the sequence of the thick Hartlepool Anhydrite and its probable relationship to the Middle Magnesian Limestone reef of Durham. Two alternative interpretations of the structure are offered in the paper; one assumes the likely easterly continuation of the Butterknowle disturbance, and the other the termination of this fault by an extension of the north-south trending Castle Eden disturbance.