A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



essentially of soft red marls of nearly uniform composition, and lying at a 

 gentle angle across the great syncline of central Staffordshire, the scenery 

 of the Keuper Marl country lacks interest. Low scarps and ridges, where 

 the strata consist of thin bands of brown and white flags (skerries) occasion- 

 ally break the monotony, but except towards the base these features are 

 impersistent. In the past the Keuper Marl country was largely covered 

 with woods, of which Needwood Forest and Chartley Park remain as 

 relics. 



The marls are of great thickness, possibly as much as 2,000 feet to 

 the north-east of Stafford. That they were laid down under water, in a 

 large lake subjected to intense evaporation, the beds of rocksalt and 

 gypsum afford the most conclusive evidence. As the basin became rilled 

 up the marls gradually extended over the underlying sub-divisions, and 

 finally in the north overlapped them all until they invaded the bays and 

 hollows of the Carboniferous rocks which here formed the margins of the 

 basin. 



The red marl forms an excellent soil and was formerly dug for 

 ' top-dressing,' the small pits excavated for this purpose or for drinking 

 troughs lying scattered in countless numbers all over its outcrop. The 

 celebrated alabaster quarries of Fauld near Tutbury lie in the Keuper 

 Marl. Alabaster is here obtained in large slabs, and was used 

 extensively for the ornamental work of Croxden Abbey and Lichfield 

 Cathedral. Two hundred years ago, and long before it was quarried near 

 Tettenhall, the Burton workers in alabaster had attained a considerable 

 status. Brine wells have been sunk into the marls to the north of 

 Stafford and at Shirleywich. 



RHjETIC PERIOD 



The gradual passing away of the Triassic continental period is revealed 

 in the interesting outliers of the Rhaetic formation in Needwood Forest 

 and Bagots Park to the west of Burton-on-Trent. The sections are very 

 meagre, the best being the exposure at Marchington Cliff where the 

 red Keuper Marls pass up imperceptibly into bluish white conchoidal 

 marls and impure limestones containing Axinus cloacinus and overlain by 

 a few feet of the characteristic black Rhastic shales. 



With the Rhastic Beds the geological history of the county as re- 

 corded in the solid rock formations terminates. We know that the Rhaetic 

 deposits mark the commencement of a great regional depression during 

 which Britain and western Europe lay submerged for a vast interval of 

 time beneath the ocean, but of which no relics have been detected in 

 Staffordshire. To the east the Jurassic and Cretaceous systems follow 

 each other in consecutive order ; to the west, at Audlem, it is known that 

 at least the Jurassic seas extended, but from Staffordshire its sediments 

 have been swept away. Of the early stages of the Tertiary period, so 

 well exhibited in the south-eastern counties, Staffordshire again presents 

 a blank, so that volume after volume of the geological record has been 



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