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Encyclopedia Britannica

YOREDALE SERIES

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 924 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: YAK-ZYM

YOREDALE SERIES , in

geology

GEOLOGY (from Gr. yp7, the earth, and Abyor, science)

, a local phase of the

lower

LOWER

Carboniferous rocks of the N. of England. The name was introduced by J. Phillips on account of the typical development of the phase in Yoredale (Wensleydale), Yorkshire. In the Yorkshire dales the Carboniferous rocks assume an aspect very different from that which obtains in the S. Beds of detrital sediment, sandstones, shales and occasional ironstones and thin coals

separate

SEPARATE

the limestones into well-defined beds. These limestone beds have received various names of local significance (Hardraw Scar, Simonstone, Middle, Underset, Main and many others), and owing to the country being little disturbed by faulting and being much cut up by the streams, they stand out as escarpments on either side of the valleys. The first indication of the intercalation of thick detrital deposits within the massive limestone is seen in Ingleborough and Penyghent; but as the rocks are traced N. the detrital matter increases in quantity and the limestones diminish, till in Northumberland the whole Carboniferous

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

assumes the Yoredale phase, and consists of alternations of detrital and calcareous beds, no massive limestone being seen.
The Yoredale limestones are characterized by the presence of Productus giganteus and the brachiopod fauna usually associated with it. The main limestone of Weardale is full of corals, including Lonsdaleia floriformis, Dibunophyllum sp., Cyclophyllum pachyendothecum, &c., and has a typical Visean fauna; it would therefore correspond, palaeontologically, with the upper

part

PART

of the Carboniferous Limestone of

Derbyshire

DERBYSHIRE

. On Ingleborough the limestones are not very fossiliferous, but the Main Limestone contains small corals of a zaphrentoid type and an upper Visean fauna. Posidonomya Becheri occurs fairly low down in the

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

in the Shale above the Hardraw Scar and Gayls limestones, but it is not accompanied by any of the goniatites or other cephalopods and lamellibranchs which characterize the Posidonomya Becheri beds of the Pendleside Series, the faunas of the Yoredale and Pendleside phases being very distinct. The Red Bed Limestone of Leyburn, the upper-most limestone of the series, is very

rich

in fish remains, which are identical in many cases with those found in the topmost beds of the massive Carboniferous Limestone at Bolt Edge quarry in

Derbyshire

DERBYSHIRE

. The shales between the limestones are

rich

in fossils and contain abundant single corals referable to Zaphrentis enniskilleni, Cyclophyllum pachyendothecum and others; these, though high-zonal forms, occur low down in the Yoredale strata, even in the shale above the Hardraw Scar limestone. In the Derbyshire area and farther N. these corals would indicate the uppermost beds of the limestone series of those districts, and their early

appearance

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

in the Yoredale area is probably entirely due to conditions of environment. Attempts have been made to correlate rocks in a number of widely separated areas with the Yoredale strata, but on wholly insufficient grounds. It is clear that the exact relation-ship which the Yoredale series of the type area bears as a whole to the

lower

LOWER

Carboniferous rocks of the Midlands, N. and S. Wales, &c., on the one hand, and to the Pendleside series on the other, has yet to be established on a firm palaeontological basis.
See Mem. Geol. Survey, "

Geology

GEOLOGY (from Gr. yp7, the earth, and Abyor, science)

of Mallerstang "; W. Hind, Proc. Yorks. Geol." and Poly. Soc. (1902), xiv.

part

PART

iii.; and Rep. Brit. Ass., "

Life

LIFE

Zones Brit. Carb. Rocks " (1901).

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