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Abstract
The Brassington Formation of Derbyshire and Staffordshire in the southern Pennine hills of central England is a succession of sands, gravels and clays preserved within karstic cavities in Carboniferous Limestone. Varicoloured clays and a thin lignite within the uppermost unit (the Kenslow Member) at Kenslow Top Pit near Friden, Derbyshire has yielded abundant pollen, spores and plant remains. The palynoflora was previously assigned to the Late Miocene to Early Pliocene. The Brassington Formation is reinterpreted here as being Tortonian (Late Miocene) in age based onthe presence of the key pollen taxa Symplocosroman Tricolpopollenites liblarensis and Tricolpopollenites microhenrici. The Tortonian age of the Brassington Formation means that it is the most extensive well-dated onshore Miocene unit in the UK. This refined age assessment also indicates that the rate of continuous uplift of the southern Pennines during Alpine mountain building was 0.03–0.06 mm a–1; this is significantly lower than has been recently suggested. Using the coexistence approach on the Kenslow Member palynofloras, a median value for the mean annual temperature is about 16°C.
Acknowledgements
This work forms part of the Ph.D. project of MJP which is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the British Geological Survey University Funding Initiative (studentship NE/G523563/1). The owner of Kenslow Top Pit, Janet Renwick, granted MJP and JBR access to the quarry on several occasions. Nick Schafstall, James Witts and Stephanie Wood are thanked for their assistance in the field. Christa-Charlotte Hofmann is thanked for her advice on pollen determinations. Vanessa J. Banks, Thomas D. Demchuk, Michael A. Ellis, David M. Jarzen and Peter Walsh are thanked for their reviews of early drafts of this contribution. James B. Riding publishes with the permission of the Executive Director, British Geological Survey (NERC).