Vol. 56.] GEOLOGY OF THE MALVERN AND ABBERLEY HILLS. 



189 



When traced south of Bromesberrow, the Keuper Breccia and 

 Sandstone are known to overlap the Bunter and rest directly either 

 upon the Coal Measures or upon the Old lied Sandstone, which 

 underlies the latter. This phenomenon evidently marks merely a 

 phase of the well-known southerly overlap of the upper members 

 of the Trias of the Western Midlands. 1 About Kidderminster the 

 whole of the Triassic Series is well developed ; at Knightwick the 

 Lower Soft Bed Sandstone and the Pebble Beds of the Bunter have 

 disappeared, and the Upper Soft Bed Sandstone rests directly upon 

 the Haffield Breccia. South of Bromesberrow the Upper Soft Bed 

 Sandstone disappears ; and still farther south, as is well known, 

 the Keuper Marls, or even the Rhaetic beds, rest directly upon 

 Palaeozoic rocks. The accompanying diagram (fig. 30, p. 188) 

 shows the probable relations of the various formations between 

 Kidderminster and Bromesberrow. 



If the views set forth in the foregoing pages be correct, it follows 

 that : — 



(1) The Upper Bunter Sandstone forms the base of the Trias all 



along the line of the Malvern and Abberley Ranges, and 

 this is owing to the generally recognized overlap of the 

 upper members of the Trias as they are traced southward. 



(2) The Trias rests upon the Haffield Breccia without much 



difference in dip (no difference is perceptible in the only, 

 junction actually seen). 



(3) There is no passage between the Haffield Breccia and the base 



of the Trias, the junction being an unconformity. The Breccia, 

 therefore, cannot be regarded as the variable base of the 

 Trias, unless indeed it represents horizons below the Lower 

 Bunter Sandstone (which is the lowest member of the Trias 

 at present recognized), for the latter rests unconformably 

 upon all three members of the ' Permian,' including the 

 Trappoid Breccia. 2 



XXL The Post-Liassic Faults. 



The most important of the faults which have affected the Malvern 

 and Abberley districts since Palaeozoic times is that on the eastern 

 side of the chain. The eastern boundary of the Archaean and 

 Palaeozoic rocks, when traced from the northern end of Abberley 

 Hill to the southern end of Chase End Hill, shows a sinuous course, 

 like that taken by a number of the post-Triassic faults of the 

 Midlands. The sinuosity in the present case is so marked as to 



1 Hull, Quart. Jou^n. Geol. Soc. vol. xvi (1860) p. 63; 'Trias & Permian of 

 Midlands ' Mem. Geol. Surv. 1869, p. 108 ; see also H. B. Woodward, ' Geol. of 

 Engl. & Wales ' 2nd ed. (1887) pp. 221 et seqq., & Jukes-Browne, ' Building of 

 Brit. Is.' 1st ed. (1888) pp. 118 & 122. 



2 Hull, ' Trias & Permian of Midlands ' Mem. Geol. Surv. 1869, p. 32 ; & 

 Cantrill, 'Geol. of Wyre Forest Coalfield' 1895, p. 35. 



