The BGS Lexicon of Named Rock Units — Result Details

Frizington Limestone Formation

Computer Code: FRLI Preferred Map Code: notEntered
Status Code: Full
Age range: Holkerian Substage (CQ) — Holkerian Substage (CQ)
Lithological Description: A buff to dark grey, bioclastic, sandy grainstone to packstone and fenestral lime mudstone, displaying tabular or cross bedding, containing stromatolites and Lithostrotion, Syringopora and Siphonodendron coral colonies.
Definition of Lower Boundary: The lower boundary is generally marked by a disconformity at the top of the underlying Courceyan age Marsett Formation (formerly Basal Beds (Cumbria) Formation), or locally, the Cockermouth Volcanic Formation. The disconformity surface may be identified in borehole records, but in outcrop in West Cumbria, the boundary is conveniently taken at the sharp change from conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone or basalt lava to cross-bedded calc-arenite and limestone. The disconformity represents a depositional hiatus spanning the Chadian and Arundian stages, except in a single instance in the Sellafield area where a few metres of late Chadian strata are preserved below the formation base (Sellafield Borehole No.3, Barclay et al., 1994). In places along the northern margin of the Lakeland fells (Eastwood et al., 1968) the formation oversteps the Marsett Formation and directly overlies Lower Palaeozoic Skiddaw Group or Borrowdale Volcanic Group rocks, and as such, the lower boundary is the base Carboniferous unconformity.
Definition of Upper Boundary: The top of the limestone beds with a Holkerian fauna, or the base of the limestone beds containing a late Asbian fauna. In addition, the top of the beds of mudstone interbedded with calcrete and palaeokarstic limestone (Sixth Shale Member of the West Cumbria orefield) boundary picked in the Sellafield Borehole No.3 (Barclay et al., 1994), corresponds to a prominent palaeokarstic surface, and in the Uldale area [NY 2560 3700], the top of the Formation is a palaeosol containing a thin coal seam (Eastwood et al., 1968).
Thickness: From 50m to 100m
Geographical Limits: Between Whitehaven and Penrith, in west and north Cumbria, the western limit is truncated below the Permo-Triassic basal unconformity, and the eastern limit is taken at the Kirk Rigg Fault, along the line of the A66 highway, west of Penrith (McCormac, 2001).
Parent Unit: Great Scar Limestone Group (GSCL)
Previous Name(s): Seventh Limestone (-915)
Alternative Name(s): none recorded or not applicable
Stratotypes:
Type Section  Sellafield Borehole Number 3, west Cumbria, at between 1515.75m and 1615.45m depth below rotary table. Barclay et al., 1994. 
Partial Type Section  Frizington Parks Quarry, West Cumbria, which is a disused quarry in fields 200m northeast of Scalelands Farm, on the west bank of the River Eden. Barclay et al., 1994. Stabbins, 1969. 
Reference(s):
McCormac, M, 2001. The Upper Palaeozoic rocks of the Shap and Penrith district, Edenside, Cumbria. British Geological Survey Research Report, RR/01/10. 
Arthurton, R S, and Wadge, A J. 1981. Geology of the country around Penrith. Memoir for geological sheet 24. Institute of Geological Sciences, London, HMSO. 
Eastwood, T, Hollingworth, S E, Rose, W C C, and Trotter, F M. 1968. Geology of the country around Cockermouth and Caldbeck. Memoir of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, England and Wales, Sheet 23. 
Dean, M T, Browne, M A E, Waters, C N and Powell, J H. 2011. A lithostratigraphical framework for the Carboniferous successions of northern Great Britain (onshore). British Geological Survey Research Report, RR/10/007. 165pp. 
Barclay, W J, Riley, N J, and Strong, G E. 1994. The Dinantian rocks of the Sellafield area, West Cumbria. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, Vol.50, 37-49. 
Stabbins, R. 1969. The depositional history of the Lower Carboniferous rocks of West Cumberland. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of London. 
Akhurst, M C, Chadwick, R A, Holliday, D W, McCormac, M, McMillan, A A, Millward, D, Young, B, Ambrose, K, Auton, C A, Barclay, W J, Barnes, R P, Beddoe-Stephens, B, James, J C W, Johnson, H, Jones, N S, Glover, B W, Hawkins, M P, Kimbell, G S, MacPherson, K A T, Merritt, J W, Milodowski, A E, Riley, N J, Robins, N S, Stone, P, and Wingfield, R T R. 1997. The geology of the west Cumbria district. Memoir of the British Geological Survey, Sheets 28, 37 and 47 (England and Wales). 138pp. 
Eastwood T, and others. 1968. Geology of the country around Whitehaven. Memoir of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Sheet 28 (England and Wales). 
1:50K maps on which the lithostratigraphical unit is found, and map code used:
E022 E023 E024 E028