The BGS Lexicon of Named Rock Units — Result Details

Urswick Limestone Formation

Computer Code: UL Preferred Map Code: UL
Status Code: Full
Age range: Asbian Substage (CR) — Asbian Substage (CR)
Lithological Description: Mainly thickly and well-bedded pale grey grainstones or calcarenites, commonly with darker mottling (pseudobreccia) and a rubbly texture, especially adjacent to scattered partings and thin beds of grey and varicoloured clay.
Definition of Lower Boundary: Point where poorly bedded limestones of the Park Limestone Formation pass upwards into well bedded limestones and "pseudobreccias".
Definition of Upper Boundary: Taken where the predominantly pale thickly bedded Urswick Limestones pass up into the predominantly dark thinner-bedded limestones of the Alston Formation (formerly Gleaston Formation).
Thickness: 115-180m
Geographical Limits: South Cumbria - north Lancashire from Duddon Estuary to Carnforth area.
Parent Unit: Great Scar Limestone Group (GSCL)
Previous Name(s): Urswick Limestone [Obsolete Name and Code: Use UL] (-2517)
Alternative Name(s): none recorded or not applicable
Stratotypes:
Reference Section  Trowbarrow Quarry (disused) exposes 150m, almost the full thickness of the formation. 
Reference Section  Stainton quarries (Crown: SD 245 728) to (Devonshire: SD 249 728). Quarry complex north of the village of Stainton, exposing some 77m of the formation including basal contact with the Park Limestone Formation. 
Reference Section  Natural crags in steeply dipping beds 200m east-north-east of Kirk House, Over Kellett, Carnforth, Lancs. 
Reference(s):
Dunham, K C and Rose, W C C. 1941. Geology of the iron-ore field of south Cumberland and Furness. Geological Survey of Great Britain, Wartime Pamphlet, No.16. 
Rose, W C C. 1977. Geology and Hematite deposits of South Cumbria. Economic Memoir for 1:50,000 Sheet 58 and southern part of Sheet 48. Memoir of the geological Survey of Great Britain. 
1:50K maps on which the lithostratigraphical unit is found, and map code used:
E059 E058 E048