The Carboniferous Limestone of the Manifold Valley region, North Staffordshire 1

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Abstract
Summary: The region comprises the extreme south-western portion of the Dinantian outcrop in the southern Pennines. A survey on the 1/10,560 scale has revealed a succession ranging from Tournaisian to Namurian. The beds are of marginal facies, lying between the Derbyshire Rigid Block and the Cheshire basin; they contain both reef and bedded limestones. A lower series consists of an upward sequence of cement-stones, massive limestones, and black cherty limestones. The major reef limestones and the cementstones contain a pericyclid fauna equal to a C 1 age, and the higher beds are referred, with a little evidence, to C 2 -S 1 horizons. The upper series overlies these with unconformity, and represents the D 1 P 2 zones. Facies changes from north to south, related to a central reef belt, occur in both D 2 and P horizons, in the following fashion :— Minor unconformities occur at the base of the “ crassiventer ” beds and the base of the P zone. In the west, early Namurian beds rest with slight transgression upon P 2 ; this discordance increases eastwards, and it is clear that the main folding movements were pre-Namurian. Two periods of folding have been recognized, one of pre-D 1 age along north-west and south-east lines; the main late-Viséan folding has a north-and-south trend. The reef limestones have been little affected by the folding, the less competent bedded limestones being folded and shattered against them.