Copies of unpublished papers, on the Aalenian & Bajocian Rocks of N & East England & Scotland

1. NEW INFORMATION ON THE SCARBOROUGH FORMATION OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST
   A 107Kb PDF File, this paper was produced in about 1988, in a format for the Proc. York. Geol. Soc, but was never submitted, owing to doubts as to the presence of subsequently published work on the unit. This paper updates my last published work on the Scarborough Formation, found in the Geological Society of London's Special Report No. 15, 1980. See the result of a recent visit to Scarborough here!

   Summary: New ammonite records from the Scarborough Formation (Middle Jurassic, Ravenscar Group), some from previously unrecorded horizons, are discussed. A revised correlation of the coastal exposures is suggested. It is unlikely that there is any major break in the Stephanoceras humphriesianum Zone sequence, which appears to be complete at most coastal sections. A new lithostratigraphic unit - the Hawsker Bottoms Coral-bed of the Spindle Thorn Member - is erected and its palaeoenvironmental significance discussed.

2. A Report on Dogger (Aalenian) ammonites from the very western edge of the present outcrop in the North Yorkshire Moors.
   A 96Kb PDF File, this paper was produced in June 1978, based on some material kindly loaned to me by Professor Hemingway. A copy of the report I sent to him I have made available here. I prepared this report, just after sending the latter to him. I then sent him a copy for his comments. He was agreeable to publication, but wanted me to wait before publishing until he had published his current work on the Dogger. I agreed and waited sometime, until the publication of the Geological Society's Special Report 15, The Middle Jurassic correlation charts (Cope et al. 1980), where I felt it necessary to publish a brief record of these ammonites (Parsons, 1980, p. 20). The current file is thus the supporting material for the latter record. The publication of the raw facts in the Geol. Soc. publication reduced the urgency for actual publication, which has waited till now. The block with three ammonites labelled, as in text can be found here
   Summary:
   A new record of Aalenian ammonites from the Yorkshire dogger is made. Six specimens of Ludwigia s. lat. are described and correlated with the haugi subzone, there thus appears to be two distinct murchisonae Zone ammonite horizons within the Yorkshire Dogger, a lower level yielding common Ludwigia s. lat. of haugi subzone age, and a higher horizon of murchisonae subzone age yielding the subzonal index.

3. TOWARDS A REVISION OF THE LITHOSTRATIGRAPHIC NOMENCLATURE OF THE MIDDLE JURASSIC OF NORTH-EAST YORKSHIRE
   A 137Kb PDF file of a paper produced in 1975. Against some advice from Hugh Torrens, I submitted this to the Geological Magazine. His opinion was that this was run by ex students of Professor Hemingway and they would not take kindly to any criticism of him. I did not believe that this would colour their opinion and went ahead. He was correct and this is the main body of the subsequent letter I recieved back: "We have considered, it carefully and have concluded that without adding a great deal to our knowledge of the rocks it might cause nomenclature confusion and further controversy which would advance our science a relatively small distance for the trouble it would cause. We also have very much competition for our space, so all in all we have decided not to publish." I was taken aback by this as they appeared to be prepared to ignore priority in the naming of units and the use of un-natural and in fact downright flawed Formations, which mix units with differing lithologies, depositional environments and histories (i.e non Marine sandstones and marine intercalations). I then thought of sending it to the Geolologist's Association, but time was short, I was finishing my thesis and any spare time was taken up preparing the Geol. Soc Correlation Charts. This, in fact, was the eventual resting place of these arguments (Parsons, 1980, p. 17). I would have let it rest there, until I found the following quotation: "Further modifications suggested by Parsons (in Cope et al. 1980) have not been adopted by most subsequent workers."(P.F. Rawson & J.K Wright,1995, p. 181). Of course not, most workers in this area are Hemingway ex students and whatever they are, many of them are not stratigraphers. The following record is thus yet another attempt to settle the argument, which started in 1949, between P.C Sylvester-Bradley and J. H. Hemingway, which took place within the Geological Magazine. Pity that the later editors were not so broad minded!

   On a different tack a more recent work (Powell, J.H. & Rathbone, R.A.,1985, Proc. Yorks. Geol. Soc, 44, pp. 365-373) has shown the equivalence, of the Blow Gill and Eller Beck beds and the contiguity of this single marine unit across the Market Weighton structure. This in no way changes the overall conclusions of my my paper here, but would mean some minor changes to the diagrams.

   Summary:
   Changes in the nomenclature of the Ravenscar Group (Middle Jurassic), are suggested, in order to place greater emphasis on the importance of the marine horizons.

4. AMMONITES FROM THE LINCOLNSHIRE LIMESTONE FORMATION (BAJOCIAN) OF EASTERN ENGLAND
   By Michael Ashton & Colin F. Parsons
   a 2.49Mb PDF, with high quality pictures. Updated 27/11/05, with a new lean, corrected version!
   Mini, web version, 928Kb PDF, with poorer images. . Updated 28/4/04
   This paper on the ammonites from the Lincolnshire Limestone, was produced in 1979 for Palaeontology. Unfortunately, although they wanted to publish it, they rejected it on the grounds of the poor quality of the photographs. This matter was beyond our control, as most of the pictures were produced by the museums owning the specimens, and not by ourselves. Time caught up with us, Mike went on to a new Job, whilst I moved to London and retrained as a science teacher! This then has sat in a folder for over 25 years, before appearing here. Mike was responsible for all the lithostratigraphy and collating the previous finds, as well as providing most of the new specimens. I was responsible for the systematic descriptions and the biostratigraphy.

   As an aid to interpreting the alphabetic codes used in this paper to identify lithostratigraphic units, I have placed here a copy of Figure 4, from Ashton (1980), taken from a photocopy of the page proofs of this paper, which couples these codes with his then new, formal , lithostratigraphic terminology.

   I have put zipped copies of both Mike's text figures and tables, as well as my plates here, at their original resolution, after OCR-ing it from a faded typescript, again with Abbyy FineReader 4.

   All the Text Figures as TIF files, a 907Kb ZIP file.
   All the Plates as TIF files, a 19Mb ZIP file.
   Summary:
   
   Re-examination of all earlier ammonite finds from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation, together with a study of some recent discoveries, has shown the presence of distinctive ammonite faunas, belonging to the discites Zone, and the ovalis and laeviuscula Subzones of the laeviuscula Zone of the Lower Bajocian. Formerly, all the ammonite records from the Lincolnshire Limestone were believed to indicate a discites Zone age. For the first time therefore, subdivision of the Lincolnshire Limestone on the basis of its ammonite faunas has been shown to be possible. The discites Zone fauna is now known to be restricted to the lower part of the formation and to be succeeded by laeviuscula Zone faunas. The highest beds in the formation have not so far yielded any ammonites and therefore the upper age limit of the Lincolnshire Limestone remains unknown. The ammonite faunas, which have been related to a new lithostratigraphic scheme, are described and their bearing upon the correlation of the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation with other British Bajocian sequences discussed.

5. A STRATIGRAPHIC REVISION OF CERTAIN PARTS OF THE BEARRERAIG SANDSTONE SERIES OF THE ISLE OF SKYE
   A 388Kb PDF file of a paper produced in 1975, which was never really finished, due to the desire not to offend Nicol Morton. However, it provided the background to my rejection of the Hebridica zone in the Correlation charts (Parsons, 1980) and thus probably justifies its appearance here.
   Summary:
   The stratigraphic Correlation of parts of the Bearreraig Sandstone Group, of the Isle of Skye is discussed in the light of, new ammonite collections and a re-interpretation of existing records. It is shown that many of the Formations of this Group are older than was previously thought. The basal half of the Rigg Sandstone is shown to be Sauzei Zone (Middle Bajocian Stage) in age, the Holm Sandstone is possibly of Laeviuscula Subzone, Laeviuscula Zone in age, and the Upper half of the Shales is to be correlated with the Ovalis subzone of the Laeviuscula zone. Morton’s Hebridica subzone is shown to be exactly equivalent to the Sauzei Zone sensu stricto, and thus its use is rejected. A specimen of Emileia (Emileia) multifida S.Buckman, Is recorded from the base of the Rigg Sandstone; the first member of this Genus to be described from Scotland and this and other specimens of the genus Teloceras are discussed in detail..