1. Summary
2. Lower Permian
3. Upper Permian

Summary

Column showing the Permian rocks of the Tees Valley.

The addition of a Permian System of rocks to the history of the Earth was proposed in 1841 by eminent geologist Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) after performing geological surveys in the Perm region of Russia where beds of this age are well represented.

Earth movements during the preceding Carboniferous Period gradually raised the land’s surface across much of the UK in an episode of mountain-building dubbed the Hercynian Orogeny. This event raised the Harz Mountains in Germany and, further north, the Mercia Highlands which once extended between Devon and the Wash. Former areas of well-vegetated tropical delta-marsh, within which the commercially important Coal Measures developed were buried as a hot arid desert advanced across the area. It was under these conditions that rocks of Permian age began to be deposited within the Tees Valley between 299 and 251 million years ago.

Lower Permian

The lowest, and hence oldest, beds in the Permian succession locally are a mixture of dune-bedded sandstones and coarse breccias that accumulated upon the undulating Carboniferous land surface. Occasional wind-polished rocks, known as ventifacts, can be found amongst the deposits, which are comparable to those accumulating in the Sahara today. A lack of fossils perhaps highlights the harsh conditions which existed during the sediment’s emplacement.

Upper Permian

Further mountain-building (orogenic) activity to the south caused the land surface to buckle and fold forming a broad inland basin. To the north and east, a communication developed with the Zechstein Sea, which rapidly transgressed across North East England to occupy the former desert plain. Further subsidence meant that this new arm of the sea reached depths approaching 200 metres further east, though locally the area was close to a shoreline. This marginal environment was colonised by coral reefs, stromatolites, and a rich fauna of other marine creatures. Their remains combined with a restricted input of fine sediment blown from the nearby desert to produce beds of limestone. This reef environment was to be short-lived however, as a new period of uplift caused the English Zechstein to become cut off from the main water body. Conditions rapidly deteriorated in the isolated sea as evaporation of its diminishing waters concentrated their mineral content. During the final phases a sabkha zone developed, comprising hypersaline lagoons, pools of hot mud, and glittering beds of evaporites stretching across the desert.

Permian Magnesian Limestone foreshore as seen at Hartlepool Headland.

The Upper Permian is typified by five such incursions, followed by evaporation, of the English Zechstein (cycles EZ1-5) with the later episodes never attaining great depth. The resulting strata comprise various limestones and mudstones with intervening beds of evaporites. The latter became important commercially during the late 1800s when salt (halite)extraction on Teesside constituted the beginnings of today’s modern chemical industry. Later, anhydrite was mined in great quantities around Billingham, and potash (sylvinite) along with rock salt is still extracted from deep mines, over a kilometre below the surface, at Boulby Mine, near Staithes.

Fossil content within the Permian succession diminishes the higher up one looks, and this is not simply an effect of the harsh conditions locally, but is reflected within the fossil record worldwide. During what has become known as the Permian Mass Extinction, some 95% of all marine species died out never to return, with a lesser, though not insubstantial, number of terrestrial creatures joining them. The event is billed by geologists as the greatest extinction so far suffered by life on Earth. Life’s tenacity, however, never fails to amaze, and the survivors of this catastrophe would, over the next 40 million years or so, adapt and radiate into niches vacated by many of their predecessors to produce a whole new era of life on Earth – the Mesozoic Era.

« Upper Carboniferous                         Triassic »

©2011 Tees Valley RIGS Group.

1. Site Description
2. Site Map
3. Site Assessment
4. Surveyors

Grid Reference NZ 471 371
BGS Sheet 27
OS Sheet 93
Forwarded as RIGS 30/09/2003

Site Description

Site Status SNCI
Description of Geodiversity Deep gorge environment revealing exposures of Magnesian limestone. The gorge forms steep sides consisting of face of Magnesian limestone in a fluvial environment. Glacial erratics can be found in the stream bed.
Literature References The Geology of the Country Between Durham and West Hartlepool – Denis Smith 1967

Site Map

Site Assessment

Surveyors

Andrew Carter, John Waring

1. Site Description
2. Site Map
3. Site Assessment
4. Surveyors

Grid Reference NZ 524 344
BGS Sheet 27
OS Sheet 93
Forwarded as RIGS 30/09/2003

Site Description

Site Status SNCI
Description of Geodiversity Wave washed platform of Magnesian limestone. The exposure reveals examples of stack an pillar coastal features.
Literature References The Geology of the Country Between Durham and West Hartlepool – Denis Smith 1967

Site Map

Site Assessment

Surveyors

Andrew Carter