The geology of the neighbourhood of Edinburgh : (map 32) / by H.H. Howell and Archibald Geikie ; appendix and lists of fossils by J.W. Salter.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The geology of the neighbourhood of Edinburgh : (map 32) / by H.H. Howell and Archibald Geikie ; appendix and lists of fossils by J.W. Salter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    strata, a finely striped appearance, owing to the greater or less amount of carbonaceous matter in the layers. It is compact, sparingly crystalline in some bands, and occasionally contains thin laminjB of coaly matter, which impart a fissile structure. The following organic remains have been found here :—* Fossils of Burdie House Limestone. Sphe7iopteris affinis. S. bijida. S. crassa. Lepidodendron Sternhergii. Z.epidophyllum intermediu m. L,epidostrobus comosus. X. ornatvs. L. variabilis. Cyperites bicarinata. Calamites. Sigillaria. Stigmaria. Cardiocarpon acutum. Cypris Scoto-Burdiqa lensis, Hib. Cypridina [ Daphnoidiaj Hibberti. Anthracosia \_Unio~\ nuci- formis. Ctenodus Robertsoni. Ctenoptychius denticulatm. C. pectinatus. GyracantJms formosus. Ptychacanth us sublcevis. Sphenacauthus serr%ilaUis. Cladodus Hibberti. C. parvus. Diplodus minutus. Khizodus \_Holoptycliius~\ Hibberti. Uronemus lobatus. Megalichthys Hibberti. PalcBoniscus ornatissimus. P. Robisoni. P. striolatus. Eurynotus crenatus. Pygopteris Bucklandi. P. Jamesoni. Some of the shales above the limestone are worthy of note from the abundance of their fossil contents. One thin band of shale in particular consists mainly of cypris-cases, which impart to it a fissile structure. South of Burdie House the limestone ceases to be traceable, owing to the depth of the covering of drift. In several of the streams which descend from the Pent] and Hills, however, blocks of it can be seen, indicating its probable continuity southwards ; and at Carlops, 10 miles south of Burdie House, it is found among the vertical strata in the river Esk, but as two beds, 4 and 5 feet thick respectively. Its prolongation north of Bui-die House is wholly uncertain; probably it is cut out by the great fault which, running by Liberton to Portobello, brings down the Mountain Limestone and overlying Coal-measure almost vertically against tlie bottom beds of the Carboniferous group. The thick- ness of the rock at Burdie House is probably exceptional, the rock there seeming to have been formed in a hollow or lagoon, which shallowed southwards—a supposition rendered probable from the appearances presented by the rocks of Linlithgowshire. In that county there occurs, sometimes fully 1,000 feet below the mountain limestone, a seam of grey compact stratified lime- stone, averaging about 9 feet thick. In colour, texture, and fossils it corresponds closely with the rock of Burdie House, of which, indeed, there can be no doubt that it is the equivalent. * Hibbert, loc. cit.