CONODONT EVIDENCE FOR THE AGE OF THE PINSKEY GILL BEDS OF RAVENSTONEDALE, NORTH-WEST ENGLAND

Abstract
SUMMARY: The Pinskey Gill beds occur at the base of the Carboniferous succession in Ravenstonedale, Cumbria and rest unconformably on Silurian Bannisdale Slates. Their precise age has been uncertain. Five of the calcareous horizons exposed in Pinskey Gill have been examined for conodonts and a stratigraphically useful collection of 97 specimens has been extracted from one of these. The impoverished fauna of only five specifically identifiable forms is dominated by Bispathodus aculeatus aculeatus, B. stabilis and Clydagnathus unicornis , which suggest an age of upper K or lower Z on the coral/brachiopod scheme, i.e. around the middle of the Courceyan Stage. An almost identical fauna has also been extracted from between 33.55 and 36.58 metres depth in the Pinskey Gill borehole (see Holliday, Neves and Owens 1979) thus allowing a correlation between borehole and exposed succession.

This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit: