OR/16/053 Recommendations and summary

Ellen, R, Callaghan, E, Leslie, A G, and Browne, M A E. 2016. The rocks of Spireslack surface coal mine and its subsurface data: an introduction. Nottingham, UK, British geological Survey. (OR/16/053).

The Spireslack surface coal mine exceptionally exposes Carboniferous strata belonging to the Lawmuir, Lower Limestone, Limestone Coal and Upper Limestone formations. The authors have carried out a preliminary survey of the geology exposed but further analysis and documentation of the features is required. As stewards of the site, BGS arguably should hold a comprehensive baseline of data regarding Spireslack to offer to universities, industry and other interested parties. We suggest a campaign of detailed sedimentary and stratigraphical logging be carried out to record the detail of this site for future generations. Structural analysis and recording of the fault zones should also be carried out as a baseline for future research.

The 3D model is still a work in progress. In order to finalise the model, it requires additional time to incorporate data from Geovisionary (to allow accurate geospatial mapping of faults and dykes) to aid in the construction of the fault network at Spireslack. Field work should then be incorporated for ground truthing the fault data from the model. The surfaces are currently patchy in their extent and have not been extended beyond the sub surface data constraints — therefore in a future phase of modelling the currently generated surfaces will be extended beyond their limits so as to fill the entire area of interest. This will be done taking the existing 10k geological sheet into consideration but using mine data as the preferred surface location of seams.