| The Nottinghamshire Geological Records Centre reports that 'Moor Lane cuts through a ridge of sandstone, so that at both sides of the road there is exposed buff and red, occasionally mottled, medium to coarse grained pebbly sandstone. The pebbles, up to 12cm in diameter, are subrounded and occur throughout the rock. But concentrations occur in distinct horizons. Mudflakes occur within definite distinct horizons, an example being found 1m above the road level. The sandstone exhibits complex current bedding features including cross and laminar bedding, channel features and parallel laminated facets.'
The origins of the Moor Lane cutting are not clear. The cutting is suspected of being a wagon way or perhaps even a railway to transport probably coal down to the River Trent. Markings on the west face may be original tool marks from the construction of the cutting or from later widening or maintenance.
However the 100m long cutting does reveal some 3m of section in the Permo-Triassic sandstones of the Sherwood Sandstone Group that complements the nearby exposure at the Hemlock Stone (whose story is described by Tony Waltham in an article in the East Midlands Geological Society Journal http://www.emgs.org.uk/files/local_geology/hemlock_stone_&_%20society_logo.pdf ).
The Broxtowe Borough Council website (http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index/tourism/tourism_stapleford/staplefordhill_geology.htm) tells us that:
“The Hemlock Stone, Stapleford Hill and Bramcote Hills are made up of red sandstone, which was deposited in the early Triassic period over 200 million years ago.
The upper part of the Hemlock Stone is heavily impregnated with barium sulphate or barites, a mineral that is resistant to weathering processes and thus forms a protective cap above the pillar of softer rock below. Over many millennia, erosion of the softer sandstone surrounding the pillar by water, ice and wind has shaped the strange form of the Hemlock Stone that we see today. Barytes also occurs in other parts of Stapleford and Bramcote Hills.”
“Extraction industries have been a key feature of the local landscape, including deep coal mining to the west and north, opencast coal mining to the west and south and sand quarrying on the north slopes of Stapleford Hill itself. Sand quarrying continued on the Bramcote side of Coventry Lane until the 1990s. Some very old maps show a copper mine to the north-west although, judging by the geology of the area, there is doubt about whether this could ever have existed.”
Credits: Article by Resident of Moor Lane Spring 2007 |
