FOREST OF WYRE AND TITTERSTONE GLEE HILL COAL FIELDS. 1019 



The Coal Measures present in the Wyre Forest Coal Field consist of three groups, 

 of which the lowest is known as the Sweet Coal Group, the intermediate as the 

 Sulphur Coal Group, and the highest as the Keele Beds. The first belongs to 

 the Westphalian or Middle subdivision of the Coal Measures, the intermediate to 

 the Staffordian, and the highest to the Radstockian, Stephanian, or Upper Coal 

 Measures. 



The plant-remains are adequate to distinguish the Sweet Coal Group from the 

 Sulphur Coal Group, and to show that the latter is of Staffordian age. As the old 

 Permian is the equivalent of the Keele Group of North Staffordshire, it follows that 

 the Sulphur Coal Group must represent either the Etruria Marls, or the Newcastle 

 (Halesowen) Sandstones, or both. 



Nowhere in the Midlands do the Etruria Marls contain anything but a scanty 

 flora, nor do they contain workable coal. The Newcastle Sandstones contain an 

 abundant flora and several coals. Lithologically, the Sulphur Coal Group of Wyre 

 Forest agrees much more closely with the Newcastle Sandstones than with any 

 known development of Etruria Marls ; it contains workable coals, and its flora is, in 

 the opinion of Dr Kidston, closely comparable with that of the Newcastle Beds. 

 We conclude, therefore, that the Sulphur Coal Group of Wyre Forest represents the 

 Newcastle Beds of North Staffordshire and the Halesowen Sandstones of South 

 Staffordshire. 



The Sulphur Coal Group may or may not be unconformable to the Sweet Coal 

 Group ; its base has yet to be defined, and located not only on the surface, but also 

 in the pit-shafts. 



When this is done, it will be found either (l) that the Etruria Marls of other 

 districts are absent through unconformity, or (2) that they are represented by part 

 of the barren strata that separate the Sulphur Coal Group from the Sweet Coals. 



The Sweet Coals of Highley are absent as workable coals along the Dowles 

 Valley and at Shatterford because in those directions conditions were unfavourable 

 to the accumulation of the requisite vegetable debris. 



The fact that at Highley and in the Dowles Valley, and also at Shatterford, both 

 the Sweet Coal Group and the Sulphur Coal Group are developed, while north of 

 Billingsley and again in the Mamble region the Sulphur Coal Group alone is present, 

 is explained by the overlap consequent upon the filling up of a subsiding basin, the 

 margin of which received no Staffordian (Transition) Coal Measure deposits till the 

 deeper parts had been already filled up with deposits of Middle Coal Measure age. 



FOSSIL PLANTS OF THE FOREST OF WYRE COAL FIELD. 



The species included in Lists I to III were collected by Messrs John Rhodes, 

 John Pringle, and Robert Eckford, except a few that were collected by 

 Mr T. C. Cantrill in 1895. 



