Cheesden Brook, Gastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band, shale Unit 3 (Carboniferous to of the United Kingdom)

Also known as Cheesden Brook, Gastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band, shale Unit 3, the acme shale

Where: England, United Kingdom (53.6° N, 2.3° W: paleocoordinates 1.2° S, 6.3° E)

• coordinate based on political unit

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Namurian Series Formation, Pendleian to Pendleian (326.4 - 314.6 Ma)

• The Gastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band generally does not exceed 60cm in thickness. The band is split into five units, the lower barren shales (Unit 1), the advance shales (Unit 2), the acme shales (Unit 3), the retreat shales (Unit 4), and the upper barren shales (Unit 5).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: marine; lithified, black shale

• The continuing transition and deepening of the sea caused a rapid transition to conditions of black paper shale deposition. The development of the shale appears to be synchronous as it contains a consistant pelagic fauna and has a widespread spatial distripbution throughout the north of England. The shales display planar stratified bedding planes with a spacing of 0.5 to 0.75 mm. There is little evidence for wave or current activity or bioturbation. At all localities the presence of pyrite blebs around which stratification is deflected is believed to indicate primary pore filling as a shallow depth of burial in tyhe sulphate reduction zone. ... The fauna of the balck shale is dominated by the thickshelled goniatite phase at the four easterly localities, whereas a more diverse benthic assemblge occurs as the two westerly localities [does not include Cheesden Brook], wherethe thin-shelled Anthracoceratites and Posidonia predomminate over Gastrioceras.

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: P. B. Wignall. 1987. A biofacies analysis of the Gastroceras cumbriense marine band (Namurian) of the central Pennines. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 46(2):111-121 [J. Alroy/C. Simpson/C. Simpson]more details

Purpose of describing collection: paleoecologic analysis

PaleoDB collection 41234: authorized by John Alroy, entered by Carl Simpson on 09.07.2004

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

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