Carboniferous rocks of the Solway, Scotland

Extract. This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract On the Solway, fringes of Lower Carboniferous rocks occur in six districts. From White Port to Abbey Burnfoot. From Abbey Burnfoot to Airds Point. From the Urr Water to Gutchers Isle. From Portowarren to Portling. Near mouth of Southwick Water. From Southerness Point to Hogus Point. Inland they rest unconformably either on Silurian strata or on granite of the Criffel-Dalbeattie mass, and probably at places on remnants of Old Red Sandstone, and at parts are faulted against the older rocks. 1. White Port to Abbey Burnfoot. At White Port, a small bay, with neither houses, harbour, nor road, Silurian strata (probably of Ludlow age, and closely resembling the thin-bedded strata of that formation on the Greenock Water, near Muirkirk) are seen in the tideway, with a steep dip to the N.W. On the high bank above, the Carboniferous strata dip to the S.E., but the junction between the two formations is obscured by débris and vegetation. The junction is probably an unconformity—not a fault—as there is a basal conglomerate with abundance of bits of Silurian rocks. Here the “Survey” got the Carboniferous fossil Syringopora ramulosa. Parts of this conglomerate are cemented by limestone. The next conglomerate higher up, and separated from the last by a band of red shale, is 10 feet thick, and conspicuous from the large quantity of white quartz pebbles it contains, there being a few pebbles of metamorphosed Arenig chert in it. No other conglomerate on the Solway.