Geology

Abstract

The Potteries conurbation is built on the approximately triangular outcrop of Coal Measures that forms the north Staffordshire coalfield. This area of rounded hills of moderate relief (maximum elevation 355 m OD) forms a south-western appendage of the higher land underlain by older Carboniferous rocks in the southern termination of the Pennine chain. To the west and the south, generally lower ground of gentler topography is underlain by Triassic rocks, locally blanketed by thick Quaternary sediments. The geology of the region around Stoke-on-Trent is, therefore, representative of that of much of the north midlands, and of the contrast between "lowland' England, underlain by soft, Mesozoic rocks, and "upland' northern England, formed largely of Carboniferous rocks. -from Author