On the Character of the Upper Coal-Measures of North Staffordshire, Denbighshire, South Staffordshire, and Nottinghamshire; and their Relation to the Productive Series

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Abstract
I. Introduction The productive measures in the Midlands are succeeded by a considerable thickness of strata, barren of workable seams of coal. The study of these higher strata has, in comparison with that given to the coal-bearing portion of the Carboniferous, been neglected, though they early attracted the attention of Murchison, Prestwich, and Phillips. By these and subsequent observers, the presence of thin bands of impure limestone with Spirorbis was considered to characterize the series. It has also been generally recognized that while the predominating colour of the productive series is grey, that of the overlying barren series is red; but, with the exception of Beete Jukes and D. C. Davies, no definite sequence has been even suggested. Fresh interest was given to the study of these strata by the discovery that the fauna and flora of the immediately overlying red beds, or ‘Salopian Permian,’ possessed a Coal-Measure facies, and that it would be more natural to include them in the Carboniferous system. Recently it has been stated, in two papers, that the higher Coal-Measures are strongly unconformable to the underlying productive series. The object of this paper is to show that in four widely-separated areas a definite lithological sequence may be distinguished in the higher Coal-Measures; that the relation of the upper to the productive series in North Staffordshire is one of strict conformity; and that the evidence is in favour of the post-Carboniferous age of the chief movements which have affected the Midland Coalfields. The Pottery Coalfield of