Upton Cutting
A walk around Ogden Water, Calderdale, to look at the rocks and landscapes
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Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-
Carboniferous clays, sands and mudstones below the limestones
Permian limestones at the top of Upton Cutting
The rocks of the Upton area are Carboniferous and Permian in age, so they are about 290 to 270 million years old. The oldest rocks, the Carboniferous Coal Measures, are at the base and the younger Permian rocks lie on top of them and are therefore a bit younger. Between the two periods there was a short time when this area of Yorkshire was uplifted because of plate collision to make the Pennine fold. So the older Coal Measures were weathered and eroded before the younger Permian rocks were laid above. There is a gap in time, called an unconformity, between the two. We have found this unconformity by excavating in Upton Cutting.
The Carboniferous Coal Measures are mainly made of mudstones, but also contain sandstones and coal seams. Upton Colliery exploited the coal seams, particularly the Upton Coal. These rocks were laid down in deltas on the edge of a large continent, with mountains to the north and south. Sands and muds were deposited in shallow water. Because the continent was close to the equator, the climate was warm and wet so that tropical rain forest flourished. Dead plant material became trapped in stagnant swamps between river channels. Over geological time it was buried by muds and sands as the rivers in the delta changed position and building up more deposits. The water, oxygen and hydrogen were driven out of the plant remains, leaving only the carbon in coal seams.
The coal gave rise to the mining industry in Upton, the sandstones are using for
building and the mudstones were used for brick-
The Permian Cadeby Formation (which is a limestone with the mineral dolomite giving
it a yellow colour) was laid down on the edge of a shallow sea in desert conditions.
The continent had drifted northwards and lay in tropical latitudes so the climate
was hot and arid. The Zechstein Sea was a small part of the great Tethys Ocean,
which lay between Eurasia and Africa. The sea was hot and salty and evaporated in
the arid climate, leaving calcium carbonate behind. This limey mud was buried by
other sediments later, so that the water was driven out and it was cemented by a
magnesium-
There is a geological fault running close to Upton which has faulted the Cadeby Formation down so that it is found in the railway cuttings as well as on the top of Upton Beacon, as the section below shows.
Fault
Upton Cutting
Upton Beacon
Cadeby Limestone Formation
Upton Colliery and brickworks
unconformity
mudstone
Coal seams and mudstones
sandstone
Cross section from Upton Beacon to Upton Cutting to show the geology
Upton, 290 mill-
Grid Reference
SE 480 132