Pennine_Coal_Measures_Group
Pennine Coal Measures Group
Coal-bearing rock strata in the United Kingdom
The Pennine Coal Measures Group is a lithostratigraphical term referring to the coal-bearing succession of rock strata which occur in the United Kingdom within the Westphalian Stage of the Carboniferous Period. In formal use, the term replaces the Coal Measures Group[1] as applied to the succession of coal-bearing strata within the Pennine Basin which includes all of the coalfields of northern England and the English Midlands. It includes the largely concealed Canonbie Coalfield of southern Scotland and the coalfields of northeast Wales and the minor Anglesey coalfield.
The sequence mainly consists of mudstones and siltstones together with numerous sandstones, the more significant ones of which are individually named. Some are laterally extensive, others are more restricted in their range. There are numerous coal seams, again with some being more laterally continuous than others. Those which were economically valuable were named though any individual seam may have attracted different names in different pits and different districts. Marine bands preserving distinctive and dateable marine fossils such as goniatite cephalopods and brachiopods are widespread within the sequence and enable correlation to be made between sequences in one part of the basin and another and with other basins.