A GUIDE TO THE GEOLOGY OF THE AREA BETWEEN MARKET WEIGHTON AND THE HUMBER

Abstract

I. Introduction The area to be described in this Guide embraces the attenuated Jurassic succession on the southern flank of the Market Weighton Upwarp, its unconformable Cretaceous cover, and such parts of their Tertiary and Quaternary history as have so far been elucidated. The Geological Survey maps covering the area are one-inch (“New Series”) Sheets 72 (Beverley) and 80 (Hull); the relevant topographical maps are Ordnance Survey one-inch Sheets 98 and 99, and Bartholomew’s half-inch Sheet 33. Italic numerals printed in brackets after place-names throughout the guide are national grid references. The Market Weighton Upwarp, which was active throughout Jurassic and most of Lower Cretaceous time, is the dominant structural feature of the area. In this guide it will be referred to by that name, although Kendall, whose much quoted but not easily accessible description of 1905 was the first co-ordinated account of the structure, called it “the Wharfe—Market Weighton axis”, because its alignment coincided with the Wharfe Anticline, a small east-west fold in Millstone Grit a few miles east of Weeton in Wharfedale; and he wrote: “I cannot regard the agreement as being merely fortuitous.” This nomenclature was repeated in Kendall and Wroot (1924) but has been deplored by Versey (1948) and others. II. The Permo-Trias The Permian and Triassic rocks lie mainly outside the area covered by this account and form the flat low-lying country of the Vale of York, immediately to the west of the Jurassic outcrops. The rocks are generally covered by drift and appear …