Handbook of Birmingham / Prepared for the Members of the British Association, 1886

by British Association for the Advancement of Science

The Dudley limestone bands and the surrounding calcareous shales have long been famous for the abundance and beauty of their included fossils. Many of the type species of Murchison’s Silurian System came from this locality; but since the superficial limestones have been worked out, good specimens are exceedingly rare. An excellent collection of the fossils of these beds is laid out in the Dudley Museum, and another in the Geological Museum of the Mason College. Many good collections are in the possession of private individuals in Dudley and elsewhere.

The best localities for fossils at present are the shaly slopes on the flanks of the Wren’s Nest, where the usual Wenlock Brachiopods and Corals are abundant, but the beautiful Trilobites of the formation are but rarely met with.

The Wenlock limestone occurs both in the Dudley Castle Hill and in the Wren’s Nest. The Aymestry limestone is only met with in a single locality on the flanks of Sedgley Hill, where it yields occasional specimens of its characteristic fossil, the Pentamerus Knightii.

Carboniferous Rocks.

Rocks of Carboniferous age make their appearance at four distinct localities within the limits of the Birmingham District, viz., in the coal fields of Coalbrookdale, the Forest of Wyre, South Staffordshire, and East Warwickshire. The strata exposed on the last three of these coalfields are those of the upper Carboniferous or Coal measures; neither the Carboniferous limestone nor the Millstone grit being met with outside the limits of the coalfield of Coalbrookdale.

In the Forest of Wyre the Coal measures rest upon the Old Red Sandstone, in the South Staffordshire Coalfield upon the various members of the Silurian, and in the East Warwickshire upon the Upper Cambrian rocks. In these three coalfields a two-fold division of the Carboniferous is recognisable:—

(a.) The Lower Coal Measures proper, consisting of grey sandstones and shales with occasional coal seams, some of which are of remarkable thickness.

(b.) Upper Coal Measures, or Halesowen grey and red sandstones, brick clays and marls, with occasional coal-seams, none, however, of commercial value.

In the South Staffordshire and East Warwickshire coalfields, the well known “Spirorbis Limestone” of the Upper Coal Measures occurs in its normal place near the summit of the Carboniferous series.