Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
The “Beach-Beds” at Castleton, Derbyshire, are shown to be detrital deposits containing numerous water-worn and broken brachiopod shell fragments set in a matrix of finely comminuted shell and crinoid debris. They occur at the junction of the fore-reef and basin facies of the Carboniferous Limestone. Previous interpretations of the “Beach-Beds” as cliff-foot screes or as beds lying above an unconformity are not supported, and it would appear that they are composed largely of debris transported down a submarine channel (the approximate position of which is now the dry valley of the Winnats) rather than in shallow water on a sea-beach, being deposited at the foot of the channel contemporaneously with the adjacent fore-reef beds.