Saturday, 28 September, 2024 starts at 10:30
Leader: Steve Rozario
2024 CGS Excursion Register Solway Basin
2024 CGS Event Information Solway Basin
This excursion is based on the BGS publication “Geology in South West Scotland”
Edited P. Stone, 1996, and is an abbreviated version of Excursion 1 – Langholm and Canonbie.
iv We will be visiting locations 3, 4 and 6 from this excursion guide. There are full geology notes for the locations in this guide, available free online, which are not reproduced here.
Penton Linns
Logistics
Location 1
Meet 10.00 for 10.30 Charles Street Car Park, Langholm, Grid reference
NY 362 844, Postcode DG13 0AA
Langholm is on the A7 north of Carlisle, just over an hour’s drive from Keswick. From Keswick take the A66 east towards Penrith, join the M6 heading north at junction 40.
Exit the M6 at junction 44 and take the A7 north towards Longtown. Stay on the A7 past Longtown until you reach Langholm. Just after the narrow single lane section in
the town centre bear left and then turn left to reach the Charles Street car park.
Refreshments and toilets are available in Langholm town centre where there is also free short term disk parking. Pelosi’s Corner café is recommended for early arrivals
or those wanting a late breakfast.
We will assemble in Charles Street Car Park at 10.30 for the 2 mile loop walk to Skipper’s Bridge (there is no safe parking for a group of cars at Skipper’s Bridge, and
the riverside walk is pleasant).
At Skipper’s Bridge we will look at exposures of the Silurian greywacke basement, presumed to extend under the Northumberland-Solway Basin, the basin margin fault and early Carboniferous Birrenswark lavas from the extension-rifting phase – the birth of the basin.
We aim to return to Charles Street Car Park by 12.30 for the short drive to Penton
Bridge.
12.30 to 12.50 drive to Penton Bridge.
From Charles Street Car Park follow the one way system round to rejoin the A7 turning right to head south. At the traffic lights at Skippers Bridge turn left on the B6318 towards Penton. Follow the B6318 taking care to turn left at Claygate and then left and right at Harelaw where the road descends to the Liddel Water. There is
parking for 3-4 cars in the layby on the left before the bridge, and for several more cars on the roadside on the right past the bridge.
Location 2
Penton Bridge, Grid Reference NY 432 774, Postcode CA6 5QU.
12.50 to 15.50 we will explore this scenic geological SSSI to look at the Carboniferous Yoredale cycles, with fossiliferous limestones, mudstones, siltstones,
sandstones and coals. We will also explore the basin inversion fold and faults visible here. We will have lunch en route.We return to the cars at 15.50 for the short drive to Canonbie.
15.50 to 16.00 drive to Canonbie.
We return on the B6318 to Harelaw where we turn left on the B6357. We pass through Rowanburn, with it’s visible coal mining history. On entering Canonbie we
turn left at the signal-controlled bridge before crossing the River Esk signposted Canonbie churchyard. Follow this road towards the church, turning right at the
cemetery where there is parking for several cars. If this parking area is full there is more parking on the other side of the bridge in Canonbie at the village hall.
Location 3
Canonbie Church, Grid Reference NY 394 763, Postcode DG14
0RA.
16:00 to 17:00 we walk past ‘Dead Neuk’, scene of a tragic ferry accident in 1696 when 28 church-goers were drowned in a flood, and along the riverside. On the far
bank we can see Permian desert sandstones, the post-basin deposits.
We continue along the river bank to a small bluff where there is an exposure of late Carboniferous red-beds (the Canonbie Bridge sandstone). These are described in a
relatively recent BGS report “The stratigraphy and sedimentology of Upper Carboniferous Warwickshire Group red-bed facies in the Canonbie area of SW
Scotland” Jones and Holliday 2006.v These rocks are “probably typical of what covered most of northern England prior to late Carboniferous folding and uplift”
vi according to the British Regional Geology guide to Northern England, so represent the final deposits in the Northumberland-Solway Basin.
i https://doi.org/10.1016/0012-821X(78)90071-7
ii https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.1989.044.01.20
iii https://webapps.bgs.ac.uk/Memoirs/docs/B06816.html
iv https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Geology_in_south-west_Scotland:_an_excursion_guide.
v https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/7191/1/IR06043.pdf
vi https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Warwickshire_Group,_Carboniferous,_Northern_England
Please register your interest to attend
https://www.cumberland-geol-soc.org.uk/events/marginalia-of-the-northumberland-solway-basin-in-north-cumbria-and-scotland/
Marginalia of the Northumberland-Solway Basin in North Cumbria and Scotland
