GEOLOGY 



In the opinion of Phillips, the movement affecting the relations of 

 the Malvern ridge and adjacent New Red rocks was not completed until 

 after the deposition of much of the New Red series. He saw marks of 

 movement like ' the scratchings and smoothings of glaciers ' on some of 

 the North Malvern rocks and on the stones of the Haffield Conglomerate^ ; 

 and it may be noted that the great fault which was traced along the 

 eastern margin of Malvern by Mr. H. H. Howell is evidently one of a 

 date subsequent to the Lias. 



In the region of the Lickey Hills, Mr. Walcot Gibson found evi- 

 dence of earth-movements older than the Trias, and later than the Coal 

 Measures. 



TRIAS 



The Triassic beds have been divided as follows : — 



Rhaetic. 



^ J Red and variegated marl, with bands of sandstone. 



" \ White and brown sandstone, with calcareous conglomerate at base. 



r" Upper brick-red and mottled sandstone. 

 Bunter ^ Pebble-beds. 



(^ Lower brick-red and mottled sandstone. 



Of these rocks the Keuper and Bunter occur over a large area in 

 Worcestershire. 



The Bunter Sandstones are usually soft and unsuitable for building- 

 stone ; they are fine-grained, false-bedded sandstones, brick-red in colour, 

 but mottled with yellow or white. Some of the lower beds are locally 

 hardened by carbonate of lime, and they stand out in rocky form at Kin- 

 ver Edge, west of Stourbridge, just beyond the confines of the county. 

 The lower beds appear at Wribbenhall, and the upper beds extend from 

 Stourport by Churchill to Stourbridge, and again from near Hagley to 

 Blackwell, on the north of Bromsgrove. 



The Pebble-beds, which form a middle division in the series, com- 

 prise for the most part a mass of brown and liver-coloured quartzites. 

 The beds form an escarpment in the area from Bewdley to the west of 

 Kidderminster and Blakeshall north of Wolverley ; and they occur south 

 of the Clent and Lickey Hills. The soil as a rule is light and sterile. 



Fossils of Ordovician (Lower Silurian) age have been found in the 

 pebbles. One form is Orfiis budleighensis, which occurs also in the 

 quartzites of the Triassic pebble-bed of Budleigh Salterton, in Devonshire. 

 There is evidently a variety of stones in the Bunter beds. Some appar- 

 ently are of May Hill Sandstone, some are Devonian, and some may be- 

 long to the Lickey and Hartshill quartzites. The locality whence they 

 have been mainly derived and their method of formation are questions 

 concerning which there is great diversity of opinion.^ 



^ Pamphlet on The Geology of the Malvern Hills, 8vo (Worcester), 1855, p. 13. 

 * See Lapworth, Proc. Geol. Jssoc, vol. xv. p. 382 ; and T. G. Bonney, Quart. Journ. 

 Geol. Soc, vol. Ivi. p. 299. 



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