DISCLAIMER:  The information on this page almost certainly does contain

errors.  It is of DRAFT quality only and is intended for private study, by

members of the cooperative for the study of the Lachlan/Sydney/Hunter

regions.  If you would like to join this cooperative and/or contribute

information, please contact LachlanHunter at john.mail@ozemail.com.au

or telephone (Sydney) 02 9747 3701.

 

 

AGNES BANKS

A sizeable deposit of Pleistocene sand has been quarried by Readymix and other companies for a number of years just south of Agnes Banks on Castlereagh Road, on the eastern side of the Nepean River.  Over 300,000 tpa was being extracted from this area by 1991 with a projected 10-15 years life of operations.   The unit, up to 7m thick, covers approximately 9 square kilometres and is deposited atop of the Tertiary Londonderry Clay formation.  Originally the surface of this sand deposit was a series of east-west trending parallel dunes with and average amplitude of 2.5-3.5m and wavelength of 350m, described by Simonett (1950.  Australian Geographer, 5[8], 3-10; Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 84,71-79).  Although the top of the deposit had undergone had strong aeolian scupturing by westerly winds, the sand itself cannot have carried there by wind, as the deposit has many small lenses and pockets of pebbles thoughout it.  The sand is only poorly crossbedded.  Data on current or channel directions as might help understand how the Agnes Banks Sand was deposited is not known of.  Agnes Bank is opposite the mouth of the Grose River, which may be of some significance.  The uppermost sand is leached white but most of it is 'fresh' orange sand which could hardly be from anywhere other than out of the Blue Mountains.  If it were outwash from the Grose then to have 'crossed' the Nepean that River must in the Pleistocene have been at similar elevation.  If so then a remarkable volume of valley sediment has been moved to sea out of the river valley since that time.

 

[(Not yet seen) Whittle, R. A., 1977.  The nature of the podzols at Agnes Banks, NSW, and the origin of the sands in which they are developed.  Department of Physical Geography.  Macquarie University.  B.A. Hons. Thesis (One copy held in Library, Ref S598.W57).]

 

 

 

ALLANDALE

 

Quarry on  a basaltic plug.

 

 

 

APPIN

 

Appin Colliery.  Large underground coal mine.  

 

Quarry in shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Owner J.E. Burke.  Extracted 4.978 tonnes in 1990/91.

 

 

 

ASHFIELD  

 

Green's brickpit.  West of Murrell Street.  Bricks were being made at Ashfield in or before 1841.  This is known from a land sale near Ashfield station, advertised in The Australian on 23/7/1841, which remarked that there were plenty of building materials at hand and that "Mr. Green, on the adjoining property, is already brick making there".  This would have been Mr William Richard Green who had built the Ashfield Cottage Inn on Liverpool Road where Murrell Street is now.  North of Liverpool Road, East of Holden Street (and west of Murrell Street) there used to be, behind the shops along Liverpool Road, a low steep drop which the young boys of Ashfield had worn deep billycart ruts down the face of.  This place, which existed up into the 1950s, was said by some older inhabitants to have been the remaining side of an old clay pit but nothing more is known of it.  The area was later modified and used as a rough games area, then later on for vehicle parking, and finally entirely built over.  It is likely one of the earliest brickpits and further research could provide more detail.   An old kiln and a well occurred on the northern side of the railway line.  Local historians have associated this kiln with the making of the railway line (post 1850) although there seems to be extremely little know of it.  Perhaps it was there before the railway line and is where Green's bricks were made.

 

Ashfield old kiln.  The State Railways map of Ashfield railway station for 1875 depicted on land just north of the station "Old brick kiln".  This is probably is probably about where the eastern end of Station Street now is.  It is thought that the early station buildings were almost certainly built of bricks made in that kiln.  At this time, with the line constructed west as far as Homebush, Ashfield was the only station to have a stationmaster's house and may have been a key location for the line construction.  The railway from Sydney to Parramatta was commenced in 1850 and William Randle was chief contractor for the eastern end.   The railway would use hundreds of thousands of bricks for its stations, culverts, viaducts, bridges and retaining walls.  By 1854 work had commenced on one of the main elevated valley crossings needing to be constructed, the Long Cove Viaduct.  Some 250,000 bricks were assembled at Long Cove Creek alone to build the viaduct.  Randle opened quarries and commenced brickworks to supply the need for construction materials.   Where material was brought from to use in the kiln at Ashfield station is unknown.  Local historians have thought that the kiln near the station was William Randle's.  Why Ashfield station area would have been selected to build a build kiln is not known.  If William Randle have been behind it then a more logical place for a kiln might have been at the Lane Cove Viaduct over Long Cove Creek, since this was the point where many bricks would only have to be transported to after manufacture.

 

 

 

BADGERYS CREEK

 

Martin Road.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Boral Bricks.  The amount extracted in 1990/91 was 62,520 tonnes and the reserve then remaining was 10.5 Mt.

 

Elizabeth Drive.  Silcrete.  Silcrete masses, some quite large, are found just east of Badgerys Creek where the main road crosses it.

 

Elizabeth Drive (north from).  Clay and shale quarrying area of 17 Mt reserve.  Extraction ceased at the original pit and later on the area was converted to a major waste disposal burial area, with near areas opened northwards.  Extracted material may be partially sold but is largely re-used for waste coverage.  Pacific Waste Management acquited the site around the time of major clay-shale extraction cessation.

 

 

BALMAIN

 

Balmain is underlain in part, and also the adjacent Parramatta River, by a coal mine (Summary of the mining yet to be added).  See also Cremone.

 

 

 

BEECROFT

 

Large dyke exposed in railway cutting near Beecroft station.

 

 

 

BENTS BASIN

 

Tertiary sand.   Well consolidated clayey sand with faint crossbedding, and weak ?lateritic weathering restricted to red brown mottling, occurs 200m downstream from Bents Basin.  

 

 

 

BLACKTOWN

 

Richmond Road.  Shale quarry.  PGH.  Discontinued.

 

Richmond Road.  Shale quarry and brickworks.  State Brickworks.  Discontinued.

 

 

 

BLAKEHURST

 

Columnar sandstone.

 

 

BONDI

 

Ben Buckler point.  Diatreme, possible small plug (just offshore), dyke and columnar altered sandstone.

 

 

 

BOTANY BAY

 

A hypabyssal syenite has been recorded from a drill hole immediately north of Botany Bay (otherwise syenite is prominent at the Gib near Bowral).

 

Peat, Quaternary, intersected in boreholes.

 

 

 

BOW WOW GORGE

 

An article describing Bow Wow and a visit there is in the Greta and Branxton Gazette of Saturday 31 May 1890: "With the Scientific at Bow Wow:  On Saturday morning last a number of members of the Maitland Scientific Society ... met at the Post Office, West Maitland .. and proceeded to West Maitland, where they were joined by Mr. David, Geological Surveyor, Mr. Dunn, a gentleman in the same department, and the Rev. J. Lamont.  The party were well equipped with bags for carrying trophies ...".   For three hours they journeyed on.  Mr. David was full of information.  And it was a wonderful tale he had to tell.  How that long, long ages ago immense forests, that never dreamt or axe or saw mill, existed all the way from Richmond River down to Illawarra.  They existed for ages.  Their weight gradually pressed them down, to below sealevel.  They became the bottom of the ocean.  Shellfish mulitplied and died, and left their shells; fishes swam above, who died and the lime of their bodies sank to the bottom.  The immense forest is now the Greta Coal Seam, 450 feet deep at Maitland, 4000 feet deep at Newcastle and 8000 feet under Sydney.  All this David told the party as they went along (who took notes and sent to the newspaper is not recorded).  He told how the temperature of the earth increases one degree every 50 feet and the interior of the earth therefore must be a molten mass.  Volcanic action at Lochinvar had risen through the Greta Seam, breaking it in two and thus revealing its existence.  By and bye (sic) the road got bad and the party alighted to proceed on foot and ease the horses.  The notes of the bell bird were heard.  A carpet snake 7 feet 9 inches long was met with sunning itself on the road.  The snake was hit on the head and put into spirits to add to the collections of the Maitland Scientific Society.  Eventually the party left the road and struck off through the bush along a creek dense with ferns and lichens, tall trees, decaying wood covered with moss, and immense vines.  A pause was made to boil the kettle and make tea.  Already here fossil shells were being found in sandstone by members of the party.  It is what the geologists call the "Upper Marine Bed" (the article mentions spirifer, productus, encrinite plates and coral).  A little 'Geeko' lizard hiding under one of the stones was also captured.  A much harder stone which was an erratic and had very much older shells (?Devonian quartzite) was also discovered and it was mused if that had been carried there by a 'glazier' (sic) and iceberg.  But time flew.  Before starting for home, Mr Butterworth conveyed to Mr. David the thanks of the Society for the manner in which he had led the excursion, and called for three cheers which were most lustily given.  Mr David, in responding, said what he had done had been a service of great pleasure.  Three and a half hours later the gas lights of East Maitland were discerned through the tall trees.  (The Maitland Scientific Society referred to is perhaps the same as the Maitland Scientific and Historical Research Society which is mentioned by D.F. Branagan in "Words, Actions, People: 150 Years of Scientific Societies in Australia.  Journal and proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 104, pts. 3-4, pp. 123-141.  1973.)    

 

 

 

BRINGELLY

 

Greendale Road.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Boral Bricks.  The amount extracted in 1990/91 was 32,300 tonnes and there was a large remaining reserve of 57.8 Mt.

 

 

 

BURWOOD

 

Longbottom Brickyard.  The Longbottom Brickyard was in Lucas Street, and was managed by Thomas West who operated a brickworks at Croydon.  This is recorded in late 1880s Sands Directories but nothing is know of the nature of the operation or its precise location.  West was its manager in 1886-1888.

 

 

 

CAMELIA

 

Tertiary clay.  Camelia is underlain by likely Tertiary clay.  This was formerly extracted by Wunderlich for use in their ceramics works.

 

 

 

CANOELANDS

 

Quarry in shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Owner H. Jolly.  An amount of 8,570 tonnes was extracted in 1990/91.  

 

 

 

CARLINGFORD

 

Railway cuttings exposing the junction between the Hawkesbury Sandstone and Wianamatta Group.

 

 

 

CARLTON

 

Dyke and altered sandstone.

 

 

 

CASTLEREAGH (Upper Castlereagh)

 

 

 

Upper Castlereagh river flats (Penrith Lakes) and closer settled area of greater-Sydney

 

 

Cranebrook Formation - The Upper Castlereagh river flats are the area of the Cranebrook Formation and Cranebrook terrace.

 

The Cranebrook Formation had been equated by earlier soil writers with the Clarendon Formation further down the river valley.  Geologists later on correlated it instead with the Lowlands Formation.  The Upper Castlereagh (Cranebrook) terrace is 22m above sea level and 14-16m above the level of the Nepean River.  It is 20m below the adjoining Tertiary terrace.  The Cranebrook Formation almost certainly extends south through Emu Plains, although there has been little compilation of drilling records, and may be traceable as far south as the Mulgoa area.  If so it may be pictured as a former braidplain that extended from the mouth of the Nepean Gorge near Mt Portal to the Castlereagh Neck at Castlereagh village.

 

The Cranebrook Formation is 8-14m thick.  It consists of a basal layer, averaging 7m thick, composed of lenses of clean sand and clast-supported polymictic gravel.  The sand lenses are up to 5m wide.  This layer is sheet like and is believed to be of braided stream deposition.  It rests on a remarkably flat surface of fresh Ashfield Shale.  No erosion of channels into the shale has been noted.  The gravels are not cross bedded but in places flat pebble imbrication fabric is moderately well developed, and confirms the expected palaeocurrent direction as parallel to the current Nepean River.  The basal sheet-like gravel layer is overlain, non-gradationally, by a similar thickness (5m or more) of finely but indistinctly bedded red yellow medium grained clayey sands and silts (known as the 'overburden' layer to quarry operators).  The base of the 'overburden' layer is generally planar and sharp but undulates over a broad area.  Various palaeochannel features have been observed in the 'overburden' layer during quarrying.  Palaeochannel fills extend from and to various levels in the 'overburden' layer and rarely also down into the underlying gravel layer.  Channel and palaeocurrent data have not been recorded for these smaller scale bodies but some of the channels are thought to have been trending northwesterly.  On a coarser scale there appears to be something of a north-south elongated pinchout of the gravel layer across the area of the Upper Castlereagh river flats.  It may be that the gravel sheet is not a single continuous body of all the one age but rather consists of two northerly-elongated lenses of different ages.  The first radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating of the formation was by Nanson and Young (1985.  Geological Society of Australia, Abstracts, 13, 25-27) and suggested an age of 37-42 ka BP.

Much of the Upper Castlereagh terrace has been removed by quarrying to serve mainly the Sydney market, and quarries filled with water forming the artificial "Penrith Lakes".   The gravel comprises pebbles and cobbles of many rock types - quartz, quartzite, porphyry, granite, hornfels, sandstones, hard claystones and chert, etc.  About 50% of the clasts are igneous rock types, of which Devonian porphyry of 'Bindook Porphyry' type is the most abundant.  

Silcrete - Remarkable large silcrete bodies, the largest known anywhere near Sydney, have been recovered in the quarrying operations at Penrith Lakes.  By mid 1980s ones as large as 2m across had been recovered and larger ones may have been enountered since.  Anecdotally these bodies were found usually at the base of the Cranebrook Formation.  However no photos of any of them in situ exist and later attempts to find anybody actually involved in having exposed any of them, or any notes made at the time, have been fruitless.  The bodies were seen by visiting geologists and the first theory was that they could not have travelled very far (because of large size) and probably were derived locally by the erosion of some nearby silcrete horizon.  However, since that theory was formulated no such silcrete horizon has been located anywhere in the region.  Marsden Park (q.v.) was for a time considered to have a possible remnant of such a horizon but that did not get confirmed in any way.

 

 

 

CECIL PARK

 

Cecil Road.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Zacuba Brickworks.  The amount extracted in 1990/91 was 107,986 tonnes, with a remaining reserve of 1 Mt.

 

 

 

CLARENDON

 

Clarendon Formation.  The village of Clarendon is the type area of the Clarendon Formation and Clarendon terrace level that extends along the Hawkesbury (Nepean) River from Clarendon upstream as far as Agnes Banks.

 

The terrace surface of the Clarendon Formation is lower than the Tertiary terrace (the uppermost formation of which is the Londonderry Clay) and height than the next lower terrace, that of the Lowlands Formation.  A steep scarp of 10m height descends from the Clarendon terrace to the Lowlands Formation.  The Clarendon Formation generally fines downwards, from red to fawn clayey sand at the top to dense clay at the base.  As the base of the formation is thought to rest of eroded Tertiary deposits, any gravels encountered at depth by drilling down from the Clarendon terrace are difficult to differentiate as being either the top of the eroded Rickabys Creek Gravel or reworked gravels within the Clarendon Formation.   The Clarendon terrace is undulating and much younger thin deposits would also be expected to be present in its depressions.  The fact that the formation is thought to generally fine downwards might reflect its geographic situation as being erosional into the Londonderry Clay.   

 

 

 

COBBITTY

 

An unnamed creek 5 km NW of Cobbitty has the base of the Bringelly Shale exposed including a carbonaceous claystone unit, close above the Minchinbury Sandstone, which contains a thin tuff band.

This horizon, named the Cobbity Claystone Bed by Herbert (1979.  NSW Geological Survey, Bulletin 25, 203 pp.) is the only tuff ever identified in the Bringelly Shale.  Herbert recognised it as widespread from drill core, but this is the only area where it is known to outcrop.

 

 

 

CREMORNE

 

Early bore holes for coal prospecting.   Drilling was done here to prospect for coal for the Balmain coal mine (summary still to be added), by the Sydney and Port Hacking Coal Co.   Cremorne No. 1 bore was drilled in 1890-1891 and Cremorne No. 2 bore in 1892-1893.  Cremorne No. 1 bore at 854 m depth struck a 2.14 m thick seam of coal which had been cindered by 'dolerite dykes'.  The No. 2 bore reached the seam as 3.06 m of unaltered coal at 889 m depth.  A plaque commemorating the drilling exists today at the corner of Cremorne Rd and Hodgson Ave.  Portions of the core have likely been preserved; three samples, and one thin section of "andesite", are held in the Geological Survey collection [TS 722 from Cremorne Bore No.1 at 2846 feet (867.5m), andesite].

 

 

 

CROYDON (North Croydon) - ASHFIELD (north Ashfield)

 

Excelsior Brickworks.   This sizeable quarry and brickworks was along the northern side of Queen Street (then called Jones Street) and along Lang Street to Church Street West.  It was first run by William Keen ( the 'grand old man of Ashfield brickmaking') in 1874-1888.  Keen bought the land in 1873 and at the time if was on the banks of a small stream running into Iron Cove Creek.  This stream, which ran in an appreciable gully, is no longer apparent.  It had its commencement in the vicinity of the Croydon Brickworks and ran through the Excelsior works land.   As for other brickworks, the first bricks were made from clay and loam along the creek banks, and only later on would the underlying Ashfield Shale be exploited.  Keen was a Baptist and donated from his brickworks the bricks for the construction of Ashfield's first Baptist Church which was built in 1885.  The church still stands but is today obscured behind a later shop facade, at 27 Holden Street, Ashfield.  From a rear laneway the church and its bricks from Keen's brickworks, can be observed.   In 1887 Keen intended converting the brickworks to a steam-driven dry press plant, which move was opposed by nearby residents.  Residents also objected to blasting at the quarry.  The steam conversion apparently went ahead because by 1888 Keen's bricks were advertised as produced at a steam brickworks (i.e. made by the very latest and most advanced technology).  With the 1890s depression the consumption and demand for bricks fell (from 224 million in 1886-1887 down to 92 million in NSW in 1894).  Keen went insolvent and eventually lost the property.  It was renamed by creditors as the Exceslior brickworks.  The name Excelsior was a company name created in 1890 by some of the creditors.  It became applied to the Keen brickworks, which was sold as such in 1893 to Henry George Downton for 8,500 pounds.  In that year the works are believed to have had five of the latest brick stamping machines, with rated capacity of 1,200 bricks per hour.  The works were using significant amounts of both gas and coal by the 1890s, the coal bought from either the South Bulli and/or Lithgow Zig Zag collieries.   Downton ran the works profitably.  He was a man of 'rigid economy' and stipulated that when he died he was to have the most economical and simple funeral possible, with no friends invited and no headstone.  He died childless in 1898 and management of the works passed to a brother.  The Excelsior works supplied many bricks for new housing on the subdivision developments at Haberfield in particular.  In 1918 the brother died and the works were bought by William Charles Benjamin Bush who was known as a quarrymaster of Enfield.  Bush however did not continue to run it.  He proceeded to demolish the buildings and sold the land to Ashfield Council in 1921.  Council established a garbage incinerator there, and later on began filling the pit with garbage in the 1930s or earlier.  The area was eventually filled, or over-filled, by 1971.  Levelled off and grassed, it was named the Ashfield Centenary Sports Area.  A William Henry Nicholls, who had some association with the Excelsior brickworks in Croydon, and had lived in a house alongside the works, in 1920 resurrected or carried on the name by forming a new Excelsior Brick Company Limited.  This company commenced a brickworks at Penshurst Road, Lakemba.

 

Thomas West brickworks.   Thomas West commenced a brickworks in the 1880s at a site which was probably only a few hundred metres east of Keen's brickworks, on the eastern bank of Iron Cove Creek.  This was south of the western end of Henry Street (three acres, Lot 19, Section 2 - with the exact position therein of the kilns or pit being uncertain).  He first leased this land and later on purchased it.  He eventually came to own a total of nine acres in the area.  Iron Cove Creek (now a concrete storm water channel) at that time had a swampy creek flat extending some distance upstream beyond West Street (named after West).  Two brick semi-attached houses at 2-4 West Street which were built by West in 1883, and likely used bricks from his kilns, now have the walls painted over and the bricks cannot be seen.  However West erected six cottages in all along Croydon Road and in West Street, quite likely using only his own bricks, and all may still survive so that exposed original bricks that he made might occur somewhere in the area (his other brick cottages being at 227-229 Croydon Road, built in 1883, and 219 Croydon Road, built in 1885).  As least some of these houses may have been for employees in his brickmaking and quarrying activities.  He was a contractor who maintained a builders' depot at Fivedock, where he also later opened the Fivedock quarry.  He was also, in 1878-1879, connected with brickmaking activities around Cumberland Brickworks at Dobroyd Estate.  West at first had purchased land on the western side of Iron Cove Creek adjacent to Croydon Road, around about 217 Croydon Road where one of the houses built by West in 1881 still survives.  There he ran a depot and gravel yard.  It is quite likely that this was where there is still a hardware and contractor's yard running down to Iron Cove Creek storm water channel behind Nos. 217-219 Croydon Road, now known as Impal Hardware.  West's brickworks apparently thrived in the boom years of the 1880s and he opened another kiln, or else a distributing yard, in the Crescent (now Heighway Avenue) on the southern side of the railway line.   He also, in the late 1880s, operated a brickpit at Druitt Town (Enfield).  West's Croydon brickworks, like others in the district, floundered in the 1890s depression.  Thomas West by insolvent by 1894 and his assets at Croydon were offered for sale in that year, the Sydney Morning Herald advertisment mentioning "an old brick kiln and a drying shed".  There was no buyer.  

 

Boehme and Hopping's kiln.  Henry Boehme and Benjamin Hopping in 1877 operated a kiln at a location which is now No. 28 Lucy Street.  Little is known about this kiln or who built it and when.  The first record of it is in the 6 October 1877 sale offering of land thereabouts, which reserved Lot 1 of Section 1 from sale because of the kiln there.  The vendor at that time was still unfinished in the business of demolishing the kiln, but expected to complete this soon.  It is assumed that an earlier owner of the land, Boehme, likely had the kiln constructed.  After selling his Ashfield land (ca. 1876) he moved to Stuart Town (check Boehme's battery).  Benjamin Hopping lived in one of Boehme's two houses and Sands Directories indicated that he was a brickmaker by trade.  Benjamin's brother, Thomas, also later moved there, and worked at the nearby Thomas West brickworks. 

 

 

 

DALTON 

 

Fossil leaves.  A fossil leaf bed was reported, and the flora described (by C. von Ettingshausen) in the later 1880s.  The leaves are in silcrete and were apparently found originally over an area of some acres in extent.  By 1970 however it appeared that all the fossiliferous pieces had been removed.  Only a single slab, preserved under glass in a shelter shed, remains.  This is a specimen that had previously reposed on display outside the Dalton post office for many years.  Further information on the deposit, and exactly how it was removed, appears to be unavailable.  It is possibly a more complete case of fossil site destruction by persons unknown than the destruction or degradation of the Fennel Bay Fossil Forest near Fassifern.

 

 

 

DARKES FOREST

 

Quarry in shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Owner J.E. Burke.  An amount of 3,470 tonnes was extracted in 1990/91.  

 

 

 

DUFFYS FOREST

 

Shale quarry.  Austral Bricks.  Discontinued.

 

 

 

DURAL

Dural "white metal" quarry, Quarry Road.  Volcanic breccia, thee parallel weathered basaltic dykes, indurated and prismatised Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

Diatreme at the end of Derriwong Road, adjacent to Hawkebury Sandstone/Wianamatta Group contact.  Weathered volcanic breccia crops out in a creek.

 

 

 

EASTWOOD

 

Midson Road.  Large quarry and brickworks in Ashfield Shale.  Austral Bricks.  The 1990/91 quantity mined was 8,230 tonnes, and reserves then remaining were 2.8 Mt.  The site has since closed.

 

 

 

EBENEZEER

 

High level terrace remants occur along the Hawkesbury River.  There appear to be high level sand deposits here which might be compared with the Pitt Town Sand.

 

 

 

EMU PLAINS to GLENBROOK

 

Lapstone Moncline.  The Lapstone Monocline is about 160 km long N-S.  It is crossed west of Sydney by several routes, old and new roads, and the railway line.  There is a narrow zone of steeply east dipping sandstone beds.  These can be easily seen from the current highway or the former highway route.  Large rock bolts are seen anchored in the dipping beds, to lessen chance of dislodgements.  Parking is possible on the eastern (lower) side of this zone - put in to the junction point of the old highway with the new (old road is now closed off and is a walking track only).   The nature of the zone of steeply inclined sandstone beds has been subject of disagreement.  Theories on what it is have ranged from monocline to fault to a drag zone on the western side of a steep reverse thrust. 

 

Mittagong Formation.  On the downthrown (eastern) side of the zone of steeply east-dipping sandstone, the main road cuttings are in Mittagong Formation.  When this was fresh it was the finest exposure of Mittagong Formation near Sydney.   The beds are dipping gently east and show some fine examples of small displacement normal faulting.   At this location the roadway is crossed over, by bridge, by the western railway, which is also ascending Lapstone Hill but by a gentler gradient.

 

 

 

EASTERN CREEK

 

Wallgrove Road.   Shale quarrying as brick pit.  Austral Brick.

 

 

 

EMU PLAINS 

 

Rickabys Creek Gravel.   The type section of the Rickabys Creek Gravel is in the cutting on the Main Western Railway line west of Emu Plains railway station.  Here a 10m thickness of the gravel was cut through, which is close to the maximum known thickness of the formation (12m).  West from Emu Plains station the railway line does a loop bending through north to south and then running southerly along low gradient along the face of the slope until it swings westerwards along the side of Glenbrook Creek gorge where it enters a tunnel on the ascent towards Glenbrook.  Around the first north to south loop further cuttings show more of the gravels, and where the base can be seen it is observed that the gravel is resting on the Mittagong Formation.  Also see under "Glenbrook" and "Londonderry" for further discussion of these gravels which contain clasts of porphyry, granite, hornfels, quartzite, hard claystones and 'cherts', and other rock types.  Boulders range up to 0.5m diameter, and the gravels are mostly matrix supported.  Many of the igneous rock clasts are completely decomposed in this cutting, whereas in the latest highway cuttings in the rise from Emu Plains to Glenbrook many large igneous boulders cut through are completely fresh (at junction of the latest highway route and the earlier now abandonned main road section).  Smith (1979. NSW Geological Survey GS 1979/074) initially interpreted the old river course of the Nepean marked by the Rickabys Creek Gravel as a meandering stream, but Nanson and Young (1985.  Geological Society of Australia, Abstracts 13, 25-27) interpreted a braided stream environment for the river, which they believe persisted until after 42,000 BP.

 

Non-gravelly Tertiary sediments.   On the eastern face of the Blue Mountains west of Emu Plains, and east of the zone of steeply dipping sandstone beds (the mostly distinctive feature in the Lapstone structural zone).  There are exposures, sometimes quite thick, or Tertiary sediment which is generally non-gravelly clayey sand, although some pebble bands do also occur in these sediments.  No exposure has been noted of these sediments grading down into the Rickabys Creek Gravel.  Nonetheless they may tentatively be regarded as similar to the Londonderry Clay in stratigraphic position.

 

 

 

ERSKINE PARK

 

Patons Lane.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Erskine Quarries.  Amount extracted in 1990/91 was 24,814 tonnes and reserve was 3.5 Mt.

 

 

 

ETTREMA GORGE

 

An isolated area not likely to be visited by many.   Most noteworthy is the presence of a Frasnian (Late Devonian) limestone, the Jones Creek Limestone.  Limestone of this age is very uncommon in New South Wales.  The area is also noted for sulphide orebodies, of arguable commercial significance.   The main metalliferous deposit, situated in Jones Creek valley, consists of massive sulphides in calcsilicate hornfels. Both fissure lodes and bedding parallel lodes are recorded.   The mineral deposits are described in McIlveen (1974.  NSW Geological Survey, Records 16 (3), pp. 245-277) and the limestone in Pickett

(1972.  Journal and Proceedings Royal Society of NSW, 105, pp. 31-37).   

 

 

 

FASSIFERN (and Fennel Bay)

Fennel Bay was the first site of geological significance to be declared a reserve in NSW, in the year 1904. 

A large number of silicified standing Permian tree trunks, probably more than fifty, were once to be seen here exposed between tides.  The site however has deteriorated greatly, and although 'declared' a reserve in name for the protection of fossil trees there has been no evidence found that it ever was effectively protected.  

Fossil tree near Fassifern - Photo by Hubert James Bear

(Presumably within the Fennel Bay Fossil Forest but exact location unknown)

In Fennel Bay a large number of petrified tree trunks stood in the water. This was the petrified forest, called by the aborigines "Kurra Kurran": men turned into stone (loosely - a more accurate/original copy of whatever is recorded to have been said is yet to be added).  Most of the tree trunks have since been removed.  Some were for many years to be seen in a fence in Venetia Avenue, Blackalls Park.

  Wall built by Hubert James Bear

 

FENNEL BAY - the fossil forest, earliest drawings:

How Rev. W.B. Clarke sketched the fossil forest at Fennell Bay in 1842 (Now Public Reserve R 38237)

(Clarke, W.B., 1884.  Awaba fossil forest.  Annual Report, NSW Department of Mines.  Pp. 156-159).

The fossil forest was sketched by the Reverend W.B. Clarke, who is also sometimes termed the father of Australian geology, in 1842.  It appeared in Clarke's posthumously published main work on NSW geology in 1884 and was later described by T.W. Edgeworth David in his coalfield memoir of 1907.  It may also have been seen by other Europeans before 1842 and from the recorded evidence appears to have been well known to Aboriginals.  The story was told that a giant Goanna came down from heaven and commanded some of the people to assemble at Fennel Bay - which was apparently for punishment; they were turned to stone and the giant Goanna returned to heaven where he or she presumably still resides. 

Various notes suggest there were in the 1980s perhaps some twenty to thirty large fossil tree stumps (0.3m-0.5m diameter) still detectable in the lake.  With perhaps another 20+ represented in Mr Bear's wall, one can imagine there was easily 70 large stumps in the lake when this forest was first noted.

Mr Hubert James Bear admires his 'fossil wood fence', at his home at 23 Venetia Avenue, Blackalls Park.

Both this fence, and the fossil forest, were entered into the NSW State heritage inventory in 2004 with the following details (the fence description being the first entry [BK-01]; and the forest description a little later cloned off it [BK-04], apparently not involving any visit to the site at that time):

""""""

=== NSW Heritage Item No: BK-01 ===

Name of Item:
FOSSIL TREE SECTIONS
Item category:
Archaeological - Fossilised
Owner:
Mr. Bert Bear, 23 Venetia Avenue, Blackalls Park 
Current use:
Garden Fence
Significance and archaeological potential:
The fossil pieces are important relics of an unusual former geological phenomenon of Lake Macquarie. They are the only substantial relics of this former geological formation known to exist in the district. At the original site of the fossils, in Fennel Bay, (see BK-04) there are no visible remains. There may be some fossil tree trunks still under the water. The remains concerned in this schedule items are fossilised tree trunks which have been removed from Fennel Bay, sliced into cross-section pieces, and cemented together into a garden fence. The pieces appear to be fossilised wood from several trees.
Historical notes:
The "Toronto Tourist Guide - Centenary edition, 1925" notes: "Visitors to Toronto should inspect the petrified trees which are in Fennell's Bay". Over the years since then the trees have gradually disappeared, despite being protected by a government reserve. The slices in the fence are possibly the only substantial evidence still existing in the district. 
Information sources:
Nilsen, L. (Ed.), 1985. Lake Macquarie Past and Present. Lake Macquarie City Council.
Suters-Doring-Turner, 1993. City of Lake Macquarie Heritage Study. 
Toronto Tourist Guide, 1925. Centenary Edition.
""""""

 

=== NSW Heritage Item No: BK-04 ===

Item No:
BK-04
Name of Item:
FOSSIL TREE RESERVE, FENNEL BAY, BLACKALLS PARK
Item category:
Natural area - fossil deposit 
Street name:
Off Aldon Cresent
Suburb:
Blackalls Park
Postcode:
2283
Property description:
Reserve 38237 for the protection of fossil trees
Significance:
It is not known whether any of the fossilized trees, for which the reserve was proclaimed, still exist. This reserve is understood to have been covered with fossilized tree trunks, standing in the water. There is no longer any obvious trace of this petrified forest in the Reserve. Some sections of tree trunk may survive underwater.
Historical notes:
The "Toronto Tourist Guide- Centenary edition, 1925" notes: "Visitors to Toronto should inspect the petrified trees which are in Fennell's Bay". Over the years since then the trees have gradually disappeared, despite protection by a government reserve. Tree slices in a fence in Venetia Ave. are possibly the only substantial evidence still existing in the district (BK-O1). 

""""""

Mr Bear collected all the pieces of fossil wood in the fence from the bay by boat in the 1940s.  He was a very keen fossil wood collector in general.  In a March 2007 Herald newspaper article by Mike Scanlon it is stated that all over Mr Bear's garden he had pieces of fossil wood which he had found from all across the Lake Macquarie region; and all of these bore brass plaques identifying precisely where each had been found.

 

On 19 September 2005 at a meeting of City of Lake Macquarie, the business papers confirm that 

Mr Bear had approached Council re disposal of his fossil wood (silicified tree sections) in the fence.  This is similar to reporter Mike Scanlon's version of events although it makes no mention of Mr Bear's motives and is less informative on this point that Mr Scanlon's account.  Council deliberated that the  Fennel Bay fossil forest was "an Aboriginal heritage item listed in the Draft Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Study".  That draft referred to it as "Kur-rur-kur-rau Petrified forest at Fennell Bay, made from a single large rock that fell from the sky, where people had previously been speared to death by a long reed from heaven."

 

Council staff considered employing an "artist" to develop an appropriate work for re-use of the fossils. It was suggested that a local indigenous artist could design an interpretive work that is sensitive to, and reflective of, the cultural significance of the materials.  It was believed that the fossils would be useful to "commemorate and celebrate local Aboriginal culture."

 

Council's Aboriginal Consultative Committee discussed a number of options for the location of

the proposed artwork. These included the Koompahtoo Community Centre and Mt Sugarloaf area.  It was also envisaged that the Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery Indigenous Reference Committee would assist in the  selection of an Indigenous artist for the proposal.  Council staff considered that such a proposal provided some degree of acknowledgement by Council to the Local Aboriginal Community for the historic damage to the petrified forest. 

 

Council declared the local Indigenous community to be the traditional owners of the fossils.

The Heritage Commission (a Federal body) was also made aware of the forest and after 1991 had the site listed for more detailed consideration.  The listing stated that data was as provided by the nominator and had not yet been revised by the Commission.  The Commission at that time  stated that it would be upgrading statements for this and other places listed.  However, to date (2007) the Commission is not known to have yet considered or revised its information on the forest (The site is noted in the records of the Heritage Commission as first registered 28/09/1982 - place id. 1232; place file 1/09/061/0008).

 

 

 

FAULCONBRIDGE

 

Flagging stone quarry in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

 

FIVEDOCK

 

Fivedock Quarry.   The Fivedock Quarry, in Hawkesbury Sandstone, was at the corner of Great North Road and Lyons Road.  Overfilled and levelled in the late 1930s, it later became the Fivedock RSL Bowling Club.  The quarry was commenced by Thomas West, a successful 1880s boom years contractor, builder and brickmaker (viz. Thomas West brickworks, Croydon).   The quarry was quite deep by 1890. 

And old photo shows what looks like a thin bedded sequence at its eastern wall, possibly Mittagong Formation.  West was connected with the quarry management or ownership from 1884 till 1910 but how actively is not known.  He was severely maimed, and rendered partially blind, by a quarry explosion.  That was most likely in this quarry although he did have other quarrying associations. 

 

 

 

Diatreme, dyke and altered sandstone.  In close vicinity to the Fivedock quarry.   

 

 

 

GROSE VALE

 

Burralow Creek - This creek, west of Grose Vale, is thought to have been affected by the Burralow Fault which is downthrown to the west, resulting in the formation of an accumulating peat swamp.

 

 

 

GALSTON

 

Diatreme in Cabbage Tree Hollow, in Hawkesbury Sandstone, close to Gilligans Road.

 

 

 

GLENBROOK

 

Opposite RAAF entrance, Lapstone Hill.  The rise up the front of the Blue Mountains plateau edge between Emu Plains to Glenbrook is loosely named 'Lapstone Hill' although it is just one segment of plateau front, not a free standing hill.  At the top of the rise, ascending westwards, is the entrance to a RAAF base.  A light coloured building with rounded corners used to mark the main entrance but signage has diminished over the years.  On the opposite (southern side) of this point, remnant of an old railway cutting is found, which is part of the abandonned Lapstone Zig Zag system that was the first method trains employed for ascending the eastern face of the Blue Mountains plateau.  In the cutting there is good exposure of a former (Tertiary) channel of the Nepean River, cut down into Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Large water-warn cobbles are found in the channel fill.  About 40% of the clasts are igneous and quartzites make up much of the remainder.  Cobbles and pebbles, presumably from the former erosion of such deposits are also found in the soil of the vicinity, especially to the north.  Cobblers formerly held such cobbles between their knees to beat (lap) leather against, and it is thought that this is why the hill was named Lapstone.   Access to this RAAF land to look at the cobbles has been hindered by increased security at all RAAF installations following the attack on the twin towers in New York.

 

 

 

GLENBROOK (South from)

 

Euroka clearing.  Diatreme.  Once Euroka Farm.  This is an equant area of about 12 ha, largely cleared and about 400m in diameter.  It is a very popular picnic area and has toilet and camping facilities.  Most evenings kangaroos converge on the clearing to graze the grass.  NPWS signposting saying this is a diatreme site, and had also been 'mined' (prospected) unsuccessfully for coal (small shaft sunk on an inclusion of coal in the breccia) and for diamonds.  Weathered breccia, some with concentric or onion-skin weathering, may be seen in the eastern bank of the creek on the south side of the clearing adjacent to Appletree Flat campsite.  David (1896. Royal Society of New South Wales, Journal and Proceedings, 30, 33-69) described the discovery of a coal seam here in 1895 and the sinking of a 12 foot shaft upon it, which showed the coal as narrow and lenticular and cutting out after a depth of about 6 feet.   According to David's sketch the coal was contained within a body of fine grained carbonaceous greenish grey sandstone located at the northern margin of the diatreme.  Such material, including coal and individual coalified trees (as at Hornsby diatreme) has generally been regarded as younger Mesozoic sediments which have subsided down the vent. 

 

Mount Portal Lookout.  This is a lookout over the Nepean River and the gorge of Glenbrook Creek which joins the river north of the lookout.  Atop of the hill at the lookout cobbles can be found showing that there is Tertiary gravels thereabouts.  Also, just near the pillar at the lookout itself there is a good exposure of ripple marks on top of one of the beds of sandstone.  Ripple marks as distinct as seen here are generally hard to find in the Hawkesbury Sandstone.   They are perhaps best known from towards the top of the formation.

 

 

 

GOSFORD

 

Thick limonite capping developed upon a weathered dyke.  [Has been mined?]

 

 

 

GRANVILLE

 

Duck River brick clay.  The railway from Sydney to Parramatta was commenced in 1850 and seven brickfields were opened along the route.  The line would require large amounts of bricks for construction work.  In 1854 it was recorded that the best bricks on the line were being made at Duck River (Report of Select Committee on Roads and Bridges.  NSW Legislative Council Votes and Proceedings 1854). 

 

 

 

GUILDFORD(?)

 

Cobbity Claystone Bed - A 2.5 to 5 cm thick 'white clay seam' encountered in the Pipehead-Potts Hill tunnel may be the Cobbitty Claystone Bed (Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board, Drawing Numbers G26-49-9 and G26-49-10).

 

 

 

HABERFIELD

 

Dobroyd Brickpits.  Early clay digging was carried out on the northern side of Ramsay Road just east of Iron Cove Creek (now a stormwater channel at this point).   This commenced probably before 1885.  This might be on the creek or gully leading upstream to the Cumberland Brickwords, or a slightly different site.

 

Shirley Brickworks.  This brickworks was somewhere on western side of Long Cove Creek around the present day Lord Street, formerly noted as the junction of Ramsay Street and Duckarma Street (now Sloane Street North).  William Mainer was the brickmaster at these works between 1882 and 1887.  The early home "Kiomi" at 25 St Davids Street, Dobroyd, is believed to have been constructred from the local bricks, made in kilns belonging to William Mainer.  He also built three distinctive terrace houses on the corner of Lord Street and Hawthorne Parade.  The bricks in all these houses are unobserable; painted over.  A 1890s Water Board plans also show that claypits formerly existed (by then abandonned and water-filled) in this area each both sides of Long Cove Creek.  The pit along the east of the creek would be north of Lords Road on that side, and the pit along the west side mostly south of Lord Street on that side (assuming that a foot bridge shown crossing the creek on the Water Board plan connected Lord Street and Lords Road).  The plan shows only 'waterholes' and it is an assumption that these are man-made holes.  Their elongation to the creek confirm that it was valley fill sediment that was being sought.  These pits were later used for rubbish dumping by Ashfield Council.  NSW Government Gazette, 13/6/1899, page 4517, classifies this land as unfit for human habitation on account of the putrescent refuse dumped there.  Almost nothing is know of Mainer's Shirley Brickworks but his orbituary in The Advertiser on 2/9/1899 described him as the "owner of large brickfields" and "just and liberal with his employees", suggesting a sizeable operation.  

 

Claypits north of Marion Street.   Claypits north of Marion Street were on the western side of Long Cove Creek, perhaps near the junction of Tessider Avenue and Hawthorne Parade.  Thomas McGill and John Riley may have extracted clay here in 1880-1882.  

 

Cumberland Brickworks, Algie Park.  Algie Park (named after a former Mayor of Ashfield) is the site of the Cumberland Brickworks, about which little appears to be known.  Sandstone outcropping there indicates that there could have been but little remnant Ashfield Shale clay to extract - and there is no reason to think it was exploiting any shale lens within the sandstone.  Thomas McGill and John Riley moved to this area from working along Long Cove Creek, about 1884.  As with other brickmaking operations, this not survive the 1890s depression.  McGill and Riley ceased production about 1892.  The Cumberland Brickworks which is listed in Sands Directories in the same area operated over a similar time range, 1882-1894.  Operations apparently extended along a gully draining to Iron Cove.  The Cumberland Brickworks were at the head of the gully, and were owned by the Lamb Brothers, Herbert, Charles and Frederick.  Presumably McGill and Riley operated somewhere further down the gully but no details have been found.  Commencing about 1893 the area became an extensive squatters camp set up by the unemployed.  At first 50 tents were noted there, and the the number of tents, shacks, humpies and bark huts rose to 200 by 1895 (Sydney Morning Herald, 27/7/1895).  This must have been once of the last major uses of bark huts in Sydney(?).  Camps were around old brickpits and typhoid broke out in the area.  The camp and other extraction pits were somewhere along Alt Road between Parramatta Road and Ramsay Street.  The council's Inspector of Nuisances found visited there in early 1895 and on that occasion found that the whole of the camp was clean and free of offensive smells.  The Sydney Morning Herald reported "On the opposite side of the road [Ramsay Street] to the camp, and situated in a gully, is a large clay-pit, evidently the site of an abandonned brickworks."   People were drinking water of a "most forbidding appearance".  At one end of the gully was a "large and evil-smelling rubbish-tip" and the other end a "miasmatic swamp".  The area remained a shantytown of some size until about 1905 when the land developers Arthur Rickard & Co. (established by Sir Arthur Richard in 1904) subdivided Dobroyd and "banished the community of human derelicts."   Richards itself was liquidated in the next depression that followed, in 1930.  

 

A Health Department field book (Health Dept. Reference Book 428, dw 884) mapping unhealthy building land at Dobroyd (Mitchell ADHS collection) ran NNW from just west of Empire Street at Ramsay Street.  This was presumably the gully of former reports.  On this trend it would have been a gully emptying to the head of Iron Cove (now infilled as Timbrell Park) about opposite the end of Ingham Street.   A builder, George Chidgey, bought 8 acres of this land north of Ramsay Street, opposite Alt Street, in 1911.  To overcome the health embargo on the land Chidgey offered some of it to the local government authorities and this is what later became Algie Park.  After being given this land Council began filling two former pits there with rubbish, the two holes receiving 800 loads by 1913, which had only part filled them by that stage.  Therefore about 1600 loads of something must have been taken from the area by the former brickmakers.  Chidgery, in partnership with Robert Tanner, operated a concrete block plant on part of the land.  This also failed in the 1930s depression, closing probably in 1932. 

 

Dobroyd Pottery.  Dobroyd Pottery was located west of Boomerang Street and north of Waratah Street but the exact site is undetermined.  Its business address was given as Boomerang Street. It opened there about 1903, first known as the Macarthur's Clyde Pottery Ltd., and established by potters who had formerly operated at Camperdown.  In about 1907, William E. Abbott and his son George took over the company.  Following that it was known as Abbott & Sons Terra Cotta Ware.  The Powerhouse Museum holds one 10 cm fragment of a fine intricately scrolled unglazed white terracotta artwork produced at this works.  It also produced many objects like flower pots, vase, pedestals, butter coolers, rusticated wares, chimney pots, bird fountains and in fact anything terra cotta.  The pottery ceased about 1911, but reopened and operated for a time again after this at Fivedock, till about 1919.  Where the pottery obtained its clay, and how much was local, is not recorded.     

 

 

 

HOLSWORTHY

 

Silcrete clasts (rare) in Tertiary sediments.

 

Up to 15m of lateritised raised Tertiary alluvium, mainly clays, clayey sands and silt, occur along the course of the Georges River in the Holsworthy area.  

 

 

 

HOMEBUSH BAY

 

Mason Park - Mason Park is a reserve of about 8 ha along Underwood Road near Coleman Road.  It may be a relatively undisturbed remnant of the lower floodplain of Powells Creek, emptying into Homebush Bay.  The area is surrounded by extensive fill operations, and any surviving wetland is only a fraction of the original extent.  The area has been subject to filling since 1826, including use as a council tip.  Some acid sulfate soil has been regarded as potentially problematic towards the end of present saltmarsh area where seawater now reaches only infrequently.  This site was a stop on the SuperSoil 2004 conference field trip, with a short talk by soil scientist Colin McKay.  The acid sulphate soil is attributed to the dewatering impact which has caused oxidisation of the pyritic sediment.   The soil profile may be of some interest here, grading downward from Holocene to potentially Pleistocene sediment at 1.6m which has an oxidised top shown by red/orange/grey mottling.

 

 

 

HORNSBY

 

Old Man Valley.  Diatreme.

 

 

 

HORSLEY PARK

 

Cnr Old Wallgrove Road and Burley Road (or Chandos Road).  Bringelly Shale quarry.  PGH Industries.  The amount extracted in 1990/91 was 97,860  tonnes and the reserve then remaining was 2.5 Mt.

 

Wallgrove Road and Old Wallgrove Road.  Bringelly Shale quarrying and ceramic plants (plants 1 and 2 off Wallgrove Road and plant 3 off Old Walgrove Road).  Austral Bricks.  The amount extracted in 1990/91 was 274,252 tonnes.  The reserve then remaining was 30 Mt at plants 1 and 2 area and 10 Mt at plant 3 area.

 

"Oakdale" property.  Bringelly Shale intended quarrying site, near plant 3.  Austral Bricks.  A reserve of 15 Mt.  Status uncertain.

 

 

KANANGRA WALLS

An end-of-the-track destination if travelling south from Jenolan Caves across the Kanangra-Boyd plateau.

Kanangra Walls is a promontory of Permian sanstone showing a megaconglomerate at the base, overlying inclined Later Devonian beds with marked angular unconformity.  Towards the end of the promintory a small thickness of coal measures strata overlies the presumed marine Permian sandstones.  No marine fossils have been found to confirm the presumed depositional facies of the Permian sands seen here.   The adventurous may walk (and many do) from this area across to the populated part of the Blue Mountains in the far distance but it is not easy and can take days as it is not difficult to get lost once down in the valleys with a loss of overview.

 

The Kanangra Walls cliff-face, about 30 km by road south of Jenolan Caves, when viewed closer up well shows the unconformity and the Permian basal breccia (not clear in above image).  The basal breccia is reverse graded, from small more rounded rubble at the base grading up into very angular megabreccia at the top of the unit.  On one side of the cliffs here there is an erosional overhang or hollow with a platform built inside it, a place known as the Dance Hall Cave.  Minor leaf fossils, Glossopteris and perhaps Gangamopteris, may be found at Kanangra Walls and at small Permian outliers on Kanangra-Boyd plateau besides the road south from Jenolan Caves but these are nowhere abundant.

 

 

 

KATOOMBA

A significant locus of early coal and oil shale mining

Athough Katoomba is now known as a tourist destination and almost a dormitory suburb of Sydney, as numbers of people commute from there to work in Sydney, it actually began as a village for coal miners employed at local mines.  Coal and oil shale mining thrived for a while and a small settlement even sprang up on the valley floor, known as Nellie's Glen.  This first phase of mining development was very hopeful but collapsed in the depression of the 1890s.  Oil shale mining never recovered but coal mining did recover, with somewhat diminished vigour.  However, this collapsed again, for a second and final time, in the Great Depression of the 1930s.  After this the coal mine incline was converted entirely to the carriage of tourists up and down the cliff face, and renamed the Scenic Railway.

The area has an extensive and fascinating history of early attempts to exploit coal and oil shale from seams at the top of the Permian coal measures, which outcrop immediately below the impressive cliff faces of Triassic sandstone.   The coal was likely found as soon as adventurous types had ventured to the base of the vertical cliffs, which was not an easy accomplishment.  It would have been known about by the 1860s if not earlier, but it was not until 1878 that the first openings commenced to be driven into it.

Coal, and also oil shale at times, was hauled to the top of the cliff and from there it was taken by an endless cable tramway to a siding (North's siding) west of Katoomba station.  This tramway was along the route of the present Burrawang Street.

Katoomba coal mining was started via the entrepreneurial work of Mr John Britty North who is also known as the "Father of Katoomba", since his original land purchases included much of what is now Katoomba.  Also historically significant was Mr Campbell Mitchell a keen amateur geologist, who combined with T.S. Mort (who was famous for developing the refrigerated export of beef to the UK) to buy a large parcel of land to the west of the Narrow Neck in order to develop the oil shale ("kerosene shale" or torbanite) found there.   The horizon continues through to the  Jamison Valley side of the Narrow neck, where exploratory tunnels were also commenced from the Megalong side, in 1871.

Katoomba coal mine - Mr John Britty North, a land developer with some background in mining, purchased 640 acres from Captain Robert Henry Reynolds, and made later additions as mining conditional purchase, towards commencement of mining.

John Britty North registered the name "Katoomba Coal Mine" in 1872.   In 1878 he initiated exploratory adits at the coal seam below the Orphan Rock in the Jamison Valley.  This was to be the beginning of the Katoomba coal mine construction.  For transport of coal to the top of the cliffs, a natural joint in escarpment was enlarged to provide a route for a steam driven dual incline haulageway.   This is the later Katoomba Scenic Railway.  

This incline haulageway provided the access to the coal seam 210 m below the cliff top.  In 1882, a coal  loading platform called North's Siding was opened near Gundar St, and a tramway developed south from there. Following these years of construction work, the mine commenced full coal production in 1883.

The coal did not go straight from mine mouth to cliff top.  Instead the main double incline had been constructed up from the base of a small self acting incline which took the coal down 40 m below adit mouth.  From the top of the main incline a dual tramway took the coal 3 km to a siding on the main western line.

By 1888 the Katoomba mine has 23 men working underground and 60 on the surface.  The output that year for the six months June to December was 65,680 tons.

Coal mining was also intimately connected with oil shale mining, as described below.  Coal and oil shale mining operations, bringing the mined products up out of the valley to Katoomba continued to operate until the 1890s depression.  The depression, perhaps also combined with availability of cheaper kerosene becoming from the oil fields in the USA, brought an end to the oil shale mining at Katoomba.  All operations at Katoomba was failing financiall by 1895.

Despite a few minor attempts to get the local oil shale industry working again it never did recover and most of the associated rails and equipment pertaining to it were removed by 1903.  The mining of coal, however, did recover.  After the Katoomba coal mine had lain abandoned for about thirty years, stripped of most of its equipment, in 1925 a group of Katoomba Businessmen formed a syndicate to lease the mine from John North's estatere and revive it.   The Katoomba Colliery company was registered with the aim of re-opening the coal mine and gaining coal for the Katoomba Electric Power-house, the tourist hotels, residents etc.   They began by extracting the "slack" coal that still remained there, left my North's miners who had stacked it up as roof support.  The long abandoned and washed away incline was rebuilt as one track of 47 inch gauge.  A powerhouse had been installed in 1911 in the Carrington Hotel by Sir James Joynton Smith, to provide power to the hotel and for sale to nearby businesses.  The Katoomba Mine was able to sell slack coal to the Carrington for their boiler.  Such sale of "slack" supported the infant company to get their market established, following which fresh driving was commenced to extract from the seam directly once more.

       

Network of tramways transporting oil shale from the Ruined Castle and Glen mines, and coal from the mine under Malaita Point at the bottom of the Orphan Rock incline (later Scenic Railway).  Photo

at right (original with Blue Mountains Historical Society) shows the stretch of trestle work

between Narrow Neck and Malaita Point, looking towards the latter.  This cliff face is

what fell in the large collapse ('landslide') of January 1931, described below.

The collapse of a 30m thick slab from the face of the cliff was probably

brought about by the removal of the coal.

 

 

Other nearby mines - While the development of the Katoomba Coal Mine was proceeding in 1880, North also had a prospector (named Garbutt) evaluating the potential of outcrops of oil shale ("kerosene shale") on the eastern side of the Narrow Neck.  The oil shale had been noted by Campbell 9 years before. Garbutt cut a track across the valley for about two miles to the site of a proposed mine below the Ruined Castle. In 1884-85 an aerial ropeway had been built at the nearby Gladstone Colliery to bring coal to the railway line.  Although the Gladstone Colliery failed it is likely that its equipment was useful to construct a ropeway to bring the oil shale from the Ruined Castle mine to the Katoomba coal mine incline.

To also begin bringing up oil shale from the Ruined Castle area, Britty North registered the Katoomba Coal & Shale Co. Ltd in 1885.  German engineers were hired to construct an aerial ropeway (the Gladstone's one relocated?). Known as the "Flying Fox", it ran from the Ruined Castle, across the Jamison Valley, to the engine bank (near the 'upper' terminus at the bottom of the main incline).  

The oil shale was then tipped into tramway skips and taken 5 km journey to Noth's siding.  Some coal was also obtained from the workings at Ruined Castle.   By 1885 some 34 separate tunnels had been opened up around Ruined Castle, penetrating from both sides of this Triassic outlier.

 

The aerial ropeway from Ruined Castle was subject to much strain and it was very difficult to maintain in working order.  It failed seriously after only six months and was collapsed and totally abandoned after only 9 months of trouble plagued operation, during which time some "20,000 tonnes of oil shale" had been brought up to the plateau top (other estimates however, put the figure as low as 500 tons).  The collapse of the ropeway spelled financial disaster for North's Katoomba Coal & Shale Co. Ltd., which soon went into liquidation.  Although that particular company structure collapsed, North nonetheless retained the leases and continued trying to develop the Ruined Castle resources, encouraged by the opening of the Mort and Mitchell's mine in the Megalong valley in 1891.

 

A new company had been formed in 1889, the "Australian Kerosene Oil & Mineral Company, Katoomba Coal Company Limited".   The Australian Kerosene Oil & Mineral Company had taken over the Glen Shale Mine in the Megalong Valley and, soon after, the Ruined Castle mines.   The new mining at the Glen was at the southwestern end of the Narrow Neck promintory.   They decided to concentrate their efforts on the Glen Shale Mine entry side of the seam and to let North's interests mine in from the opposite side.   A network of haulageways connected all the workings.    Cable and tramway systems took oil shale to the base of the incline, driven by the winder from the failed aerial ropeway, which was still quite serviceable.   The oil shale from the Mort workings at The Glen shale mines, went via a tunnel through Narrow Neck and a worked out section of the Katoomba Coal mine (Daylight tunnel) to emerge at the foot of the main incline. The skips were then transferred to the incline haulage and pulled to the top. 

 

On the valley floor on the western side of Narrow Neck a sizeable miners settlement sprang up, known as Nellies Glen.  It has a general store, bakery, butchery and public hall.  A miners track, now the Golden Stairs, ascended the eastern side of Narrow Neck from where a track of sorts  led into Katoomba. Another precipitous descent, Dixon's Ladder, led down to the Nellies Glen hotel.

 

The oil shale from the Mort workings at The Glen shale mines, went via a tunnel through Narrow Neck and a worked out section of the Katoomba Coal mine (Daylight tunnel) to emerge at the foot of the main incline. The skips were then transferred to the incline haulage and pulled to the top.  While this was operative, North was also able to get his own oil shale out by a horse-drawn system from the Ruined Castle mine to the western portal of the Narrow Neck tunnel (also known as the Mt. Rennie Tunnel).

 

 

The conversion to tourism

 

 

First special purpose sightseeing people carrier built for the incline at Katoomba Coal Mine in 1936,

inscribed on the side "MOUNTAIN DEVIL".  Front wheels are larger than rear to slightly ameliorate the steep downwards prospect of the passengers.   (Photographer:  A. Manning).

 

 

The Katoomba coal mine continued to operate up until 1945 when the loss of a contract to provide coal to the Katoomba Municipal Power House, finally forced its closure.  However the mining of coal was effectively killed off by the Great Depression and from about 1933, the company began concentrating more on the tourist trade than on mining.  By the late 1930s it was mainly money being made by carrying passengers up the incline at sixpence a time that enabled the company to keep going and made up for decreasing coal sales.

 

Perhaps more profitable in the end than coal mining at Katoomba was the fact that the incline railway had already been carrying paying passengers for many years.  This came about following the construction of the Giant Stairway and other ways down the cliff faces at Katoomba (Furber's Stairs and the Federal Pass walking track).  Easy down but difficult up, and the increased access down into the valley brought increasing numbers of weary hikers to the foot of the incline, begging for a ride to the top and all too happy to pay for such a service.  Initially the best thing available was for such "passengers" to hop inside a coal skip.  The simple improvement was a little plank installed at the back of the skip for passenegers to sit on.  Thus it began that the coal railway incline was to transform entirely to a tourist facility.  Possibly the first paying passengers to be carried up were weary bushwalkers in the late 1920s.  Management, welcoming any extra income, built seats onto some coal skips and eventually constructed a dedicated passenger car.   A 12 seater car was built called "Jessie" and used on weekends and Public Holidays carrying passengers at sixpence a time.  Jessie was later rebuilt with a longer chassis to seat 15 and renamed "The Mountain Devil" (shown above).  The Mountain Devil was later expanded to a 24 seater.

 

In the liquidation of the mining company's assets liquidation after 1945 the parts associated with the incline was purchased by Mr Harry Hammon, the only person to submit a tender.   Harry Hammon and his sister Isobel Fahey had been operating a transport business in Katoomba for many years, and as part of that business had carried the coal from the mine to Katoomba businesses and to the powerhouse.  Harry progressed to a a larger car carrying 28 passengers by 1952, and straight after that began on a Scenic Skyway project.  This used the parts of an ash dumping aerial tramway which had been removed from the Glen Davis oil shale operation in 1952. 

 

The landslide - A large slab of cliff face, about 30m thick, fell away in January 1931, at the western side of the Katoomba coal mine workings.  In 1929 a mine worker had observed the crack opening at the plateau top.  it was about 30 cm wide when first observed, but 2m wide the next morning.  That this section of cliff was going to fall was obvious and townspeople expected it to fall at any time after the crack began widening.  Current mining regulations are against coal extraction under cliff edges but in 1930 the state's Mines Department in Sydney was either unaware of the situation or unconcerned.  Coal pillars were extracted from under the area in mid 1930, which very likely contributed to this massive collapse.  Over the course of geological time, however, falls such as this must have occurred naturally on numerous occasions.  The walking track at the cliff base was re-established to pass over the collapse rubble, and in the 1960s-1970s geology student excursions here were able to obtain plant fossils by splitting blocks of shale in the rubble.  What horizon they came from within the Narrabeen Group would of course be uncertain.

 

 

 

KIAMA

 

Blow Hole.   The Blow Hole at Kiama was first noted by Bass in 1797.  It has been excavated by the sea, along the line of a dyke in the Permian Blow Hole Latite.  A long sea cave has been hollowed out along the dyke, collapsed through to surface at its landward end.  When waves or sea surge push water into this, compressed air at the end may force spray up through the hole to a considerable height.  The activity of this blow hole varies greatly, according to sea conditions.  The Blow Hole Latite is one of a number of latites lava units (alkali rich igneous rocks of basaltic appearance) in the volcanic sequence at Kiama (Gerringong Volcanics).  The Blow Hole Latite is the lowest volcanic unit in the sequence.  Whether the latite units are all submarine flows or were sometimes instrusive sheets into soft Permian sediments have been subject of considerable study.  Earlier workers tended to regard them as sills but later workers believed they were extrusive and were submarine flows.  Pillow lava structure has been found in both the Blow Hole and Bumbo Latites.  Extensive brecciation effects are associated with the lavas.

 

Little Blow Hole.   Situated south of the Blow Hole headland.  This lies between Marsden Head and Easts Beach, about 2 km by road from Kiama (off the road to Endeavour Lookout).  The Little Blowhole is on the shoreline just northwest of Endeavour Lookout.  Its operation is more regular than at the main Blow Hole.  The latite here is columnar jointed and the spray comes up trough a hole which is where one of the columns has collapsed into an underlying sea cave.   The latite here shows pronounced flow features, such as crystal alignment, flow banding and elongation of vesicles.

 

 

 

KEMPS CREEK

 

Clifton Avenue.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Khari and Ghossayn company.  An amount of 50,274 tonnes extracted in 1990/91 and reserve was then 2.7 Mt.  Later undergoing filling for waste disposal.

 

Elizabeth Drive.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Nolans Quarrying and Mining.  Extracted 6,641 tonnes in 1990/91 and reserve was 5.5 Mt.

 

Elizabeth Drive.  Bringelly Shale.  Approved shale extraction site (current status unknown).  Brandown company.  A 1991 reserve of 6.8 Mt.

 

 

 

KENTHURST

 

Flagging stone quarry in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

 

KULNURRA

 

Basalt Hill.  Basalt quarry operated by Hymix Ltd.

 

 

 

KULNURRA

 

Lakemba brickworks.  A brickworks was commenced in 1928 on 19 acres of land at Penshurst Road.  It was started by the Excelsior Brick Company Limited, a new company created in 1920 which however carried on the name of the Excelsior brickworks in Croydon.  The works produced nearly two million bricks in 1930 but then the depression soon caused it to cease production.  It was acquired by Brickworks Ltd in 1938.

 

 

LANE COVE

 

There was a pottery at Lane Cove.  At Lane Cove shopping centre there is an oval or playing fields named Pottery Green, which presumably relates to this.  The Leiper Bros. were potters there until about 1930(?).

 

 

 

LA PEROUSE

 

At quarry near tram terminus.  Columnar sandstone.

 

 

 

LITHGOW

 

Mugee overpass.  At the Mudgee overpass, on the Great Western Highway 5 km west of Lithgow, road cutting works exposed numerous glacial erratics in dark grey coloured Permian marine beds (Berry Formation, Shoalhaven Group), of which the largest were boulder sized bodies of granite up to 1.5 m across.  The site has always been well known to geologists and often visited by students, although nothing seems to have been published on it, and repository for retaining good photos of the erratics (prone to disintegrate on weathering) is unknown.  The Main Roads department (DMR) likely retained photos of it when fresh.  The fluvial Marangaroo Congomerate, consisting mainly of quartz pebbles, is seen overlying the marine beds at this locality.   During earlier roadworks it became apparent that the northbound exit ramp commenced in weathered granite which graded upwards into granite megaclasts (winnowed out tors?), forming a clast supported boulder conglomerate with sandy infilling between the boulders.  This graded upwards into the marine sediments seen in the main highway cutting,  where the largest of the granite boulders are seen concentrated towards the base of the exposure.  The granite forming the erratics tends to be soft and prone to decompose.  The roadworks here began in 1970 or earlier, so the cuttings are now quite old.   The marine sediments are also exposed in other road cuttings further south.  They may show occasional bioturbation and they are slightly pyritic, occasionally giving a yellowish weathering stain. 

 

Highway south of overpass.   On the highway some kilometres south of the overpass, on the SW side of the highway and just north of a creek crossing, road widening exposed clast supported granite boulder conglomerate or mega breccia (but most of the clasts are probably granite).  This is very similar to, or identical to, the large granite boulder layer immediately above granite at overpass.  The cutting was spectacular when fresh but possibly not subject of any study or recording(?).  Within a few years the cutting rapidly deteriorated, and the granite boulders decomposed, to such an extent that its real nature became indiscernable.

 

   

 

 

LITTLE BAY

 

Palaeovalley fill.  A declared geological Site (Register of the National Estate, 30/06/1992) at 1408 Anzac Parade.

 

A site of some early digging for clay and possibly for ochre from the lateritic profile developed on clays overlying  peat.  The valley fill sediments have marine influence and have been dated as early Miocene (ca. 22 Ma).   The site is the only known occurrence of Tertiary marine sediments within the Sydney basin.  

 

The area of interest covers 6 ha at the rear of the University of New South Wales Sports Field.   Drilling encountered a Miocene peat deposit demonstrated and this filled ravine that must have been carved out of the Hawkesbury sandstone at a time of low sea in the early Tertiary, prior to sea level rise in the mid Miocene.  This incidentally implies that drowned valley systems such as Broken Bay, Port Jackson, Port Hacking etc. were likely also initiated in the early Tertiary.   On the other hand, the likely Eocene Maroota Sand is now much further above sea level, showing that in some areas tectonic factors must also be taken into account.  The peat and marginal marine sediment is ca. 26m above sea level.

 

Acacia pollen is present in the peat, which is found in sediments in Australia prior to the early Miocene.  The pollen assemblage represents rainforest growing in a wet climate with no dry season.  The main pollen type present is of southern beech which is now found growing only in New Guinea and New Caledonia.   As well as pollen, the peat contains dinoflagellates, poorly preserved foraminifera (indicating a marine or estuarine environment), leaves, wood and other plant remnants.

 

( Martin, H.A., 1989. The natural history of Little Bay and its significance for conservation.  Notes for a field trip - 26 August 1989.  Linnean Society of NSW.)

 

 

 

LOCHINVAR

 

Harpers Hill.  Permian marine fossils.

 

 

 

LONDONDERRY

 

Firetrail Road, Londonderry Clay.  Clay pits (in the Londonderry Clay of Tertiary age), some owned by Monier Ltd., and some by PGH Ceramics.  The extracted clay is red firing.  In 1990/91 PGH extracted 7,663 tonnes and Monier extracted 77,444 tonnes.  Reserves were 2.2 Mt and PGH intended ceasing extraction at that time.  The Londonderry Clay was name by Gobert (1976. 25th International Geological Congress, Excursion Guide 22B).  From drilling records Gobert inferred it to occur as a relatively continuous sheet, up to 9m thick, extending over an area of 140 square kilometres between Castlereagh and Windsor.  Gobert designated the PGH clay pit as the type section.  The pit exposed 5m of mottled red-grey clay with sand lenses.  Iron oxide cemented lumps and ironstone pisolites occur throughout the formation according to Gobert, as well as there being a lateritic weathering profile subsequently developed on the formation, as first described by Hallsworth and Costin (1953.  Journal of Soil Science, 4[1], 22-46).  In many places much of the top 1-2m of pisolite rich lateritic gravel has been stipped and the material used as road base.

 

Rickabys Creek Gravel.   Rickabys Creek flows northeast from near Castlereagh to join the Hawkesbury River near Windsor.  Consolidated gravel of Tertiary age is exposed along the creek, and elsewhere over a wide area between Castlereagh and Windsor.  These 'old gravels' were noted by Rev. W.B. Clarke in his "Remarks on the sedimentary formations of New South Wales" in 1875, and by various other early writers.  Exposures of the polymictic gravel, which contains various igneous and metamorphic rock types from beyond the Sydney Basin outrop margins, are easily found in road cuttings around Londonderry.   Drillhole evidence suggests the gravel forms an extensive sheet around Londonderry, with an irregular base upon eroded Bringelly Shale.  Generally the gravel appears to have been deposited over a weathering profile in the shale, metres thick, and rarely eroded down to fresh shale (quite different to the younger river gravels near Penrith which rest directly on fresh Ashfield Shale).  Isolated patches of similar gravel of assumed Tertiary age, along the eastern edge of the Blue Mountains plateau, and in the Regentville-Wallacia area on the eastern side of the Lapstone structural zone, have all been placed in this formation.   The gravels are mostly matrix supported and weekly indurated.  There has been some extraction from the formation using smaller mobile screening plants.  The formation is very roughly estimated as 30% pebble and larger clasts (or variably soundness, many highly decomposed), 30-40% sand which may be washable or useable, and the remainder of variably cemented clayey matrix.  Clay content of the formation would be of little extractive interest in view of the existence of nearby Londonderry Clay.  

 

 

 

LUDDENHAM

 

Adams Road.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Ferndale Resources.  Reserve of 7.2 Mt in 1991 but believed inactive.

 

 

 

MANLY

 

Peat exposed on the coast. 

 

Tile, pottery and brickworks at Manly - no details or location yet known.

 

 

 

MARALAYA

 

Flagging stone quarry in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

 

MOUNT WHITE

 

Flagging stone quarry in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

 

MAROOTA

Along the N-S elongated ridge crest at Maroota, which was followed by the early Great Northern Road out of Sydney to the Hunter, there is a large preserved remnant of Tertiary sand.  This deposit remnant has a size of 41 Mt or more.  A small overlying basalt flow remnant on the eastern edge of the sand body has been dated as Eocene.  The sand is presumed to be the oldest known remnant of the former course of the Nepean-Hawkesbury River.  Pebble and cobble lenses are not common overall in the sand but where present they include minor silcrete and clasts of siliciried wood of likely Permian age.  The Maroota Sand has long been envisaged as the next major supply likely to serve the Sydney market after the Upper Castlereagh (Penrith Lakes) area has been exhausted.  To do this it might have to supply 2 Mt per annum and local roads may need upgrading to handle this.  Also the sand body currently forms a significant local acquifer, and it concerns some locals that this might be damaged irrepairable if too much of the sand were mined.  For such reasons the area has already been subject of a number of planning studies.   The earliest sand extraction from the Maroota Sand was not recorded in the statistics of the Department of Mines because the sand was extracted under guise of excavating more and more farm dams for agricultural purposes.   Earlier restrictions on taking the Tertiary sand at Maroota may have spurred interest in opening up the resources of friable sandstone there until larger scale mining of the Tertiary sand could commence(?).

Silcrete.  Minor/occasional silcrete clasts occur in the pebble component of the Maroota Sand.  Also a single large boulder size clast has been found.

Silicified wood.   Silicified wood is locally common in the gravel beds of the Maroota Sand (gravel however is not abundant in the formation).  This wood has not yet been examined in thin section but from  macroscopic aspect is almost certainly of Permian age.  Growth banding and other features of the wood are well preserved.

Friable sandstone.  Some friable sandstone exists at Maroota, and sandstone quarrying was commenced off the northwestern side of the Tertiary sand body.  As much as 40 Mt of friable sandstone may be present, however it does not appear to be as soft as some of the other known friable sandstone deposits such as at Newnes and Somersby plateaux and elsewhere.  An amount of 360,000 tonnes was produced in 1990/91 from Maroota (which may have included a little of the overlying Maroota Sand).

Shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone that is intended for quarrying.   The owner, H. Jolly, has estimated (1991) that a reserve of 4 Mt is available.

 

 

 

MAROOTA (south from)

 

The Vale.  Diatreme. The Vale is a northeasterly elongated strong depression in the Hawkesbury Sandstone.  It is proven to be a diatreme by drilling and by minor exposure of weathered volcanic breccia in the floor of the valley.  Exotic rock types weathering from the decomposed volcanic breccia are mostly brittle claystone of Permian aspect, other sedimentary rocks, and occasional iron oxide lumps which might possibly be after olivine rich inclusions.  The diatreme has been prospected by small pits in the past but never quarried.  The valley floor has been stripped by shallow extraction of the sandy soil in the past, and immediately overlying the weathered breccia is an older more consolidated deposit consisting of about 1m thick of hardened pallid colluvial sandy soil, with very weak ferruginous mottling in places.  At one place along the eastern edge of the diatreme outline there is a small deposit of massive limonite which is a likely spring deposit, and at which spot there are still active water seepages.  

 

 

 

MARSDEN PARK

 

Diatreme.  Quarrying of the volcanic breccia had largely been completed down to economic depth by 1990.

 

Silcrete.  Ms Val Smith and others before her noted significant amounts of 'remnant' silcrete in the Marsden Park area.  It was for a time one of the very few areas where it was thought that the widespread Tertiary silcrete found around Sydney might be in situ, something which has not been any further confirmed since the 1980s and it not favoured by current thinking on the origin of such silcrete.  The former idea was that an erosional remnant was preserved of a former silcrete "pavement" which might once have been very widespread as part of a lateritic and/or siliceous duricrust formed over the planated Wianamatta Group.  This idea of a silcrete pavement was suggested mainly by the presence of subangular roughly hexagonal silcrete bodies.  However, such bodies could withstand some transportation, and an example of what could well have once been a vertical column of prismatic jointed silcrete has also been found in the quarrying at Upper Castlereagh. 

 

 

 

MENAI

 

Quarry in shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Owner J.E. Burke.  An amount of 610 tonnes was extracted in 1990/91.  

 

Silcrete in Tertiary sediments.

 

 

 

MOORFIELDS

 

Quarry, presumably in Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Rented by Thomas West, who ran the Fivedock Quarry, in the mid 1890s.

 

 

 

MOUNT WHITE

 

Flagging stone quarry in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

 

MOUNTS TOMAH, WILSON AND IRVINE

 

Mount Tomah is a remnant of Tertiary basalt capping on the Blue Mountains plateau, which is convenient to visit. It is not far north off the Bells Line of Road.  The other similar basalt remants, at Mount Wilson and Mount Irvine can be seen from Mount Tomah.  A further remnant is Mount Tootie (east of Mt Irvine).  Whereas Mt Tomah is convenient to visit off the Bells Line of Road, to visit Mts Wilson and Irvine, another road must be used which traverses further north, running subparallel to the Bells Line and departing that west of Bilpin.  No stream sediments appear to be well known or described from under any of these basalts, the basalts being directly over Triassic sandstone wherever easily observable.  Mapping of the base of the basalt on Mount Tomah has revealed a westward flowing channel with a smaller northern tributary on the pre-basalt surface.  Relief on this surface reachs over 50m, however no Tertiary sediments or soil profiles have been recognized (New South Wales Geological Survey.  Quarterly Notes 57, October 1984).  Nonetheless, certain notes by Carne (1908. NSW Geological Survey, Memoir 6) and others do suggest there should be Tertiary sediments to be found below the Mount Irvine and Mount Tootie basalt remants.  The main road at Mount Wilson has places for observing the base of the basalt, which can also be seen there at the Upper Falls, Mount Wilson.  Mount Tomah is mainly visited for its fine gardens but outcrops of columnar basalt may also be seen and there is also a small quarry in columnar basalt.   Larger basalt quarrying proposals for these Blue Mountains basalt flow remnants were considered in the past, but not proceeded with.

 

 

 

MOOREBANK - CHIPPING NORTON

 

Nuwarra Road.  This area is now rehabilitated.  Formerly there was worked here a large relatively shallow and weathered deposit with limited potential on Ashfield Shale and possibly with overlying Cainozoic as well(?).  Boral Bricks.  The 1990/91 extraction was 113,200 tonnes of mainly light firing material, and the then remaining reserve was 1.3 Mt of light firing material and 2.5 Mt of red firing clay.  That some of the white clays overlying the Ashfield Shale are not the result of weathering of the shale was first suspected in about the 1970s.  Various unusual clasts have been found in these clays, including ferruginized sandstone blocks (?Minchinbury Sandstone) of up to 0.5 m size.  Sandstone and silcrete clasts were noted at one locality by Neville (1976. Geological Survey of NSW, GS 1976/101).  Finding sandstone and silcrete clasts in white clay is reminescent of occurrences known from much further west, west of Cecil Park, which are there assigned to the St Marys Formation.   Other Tertiary sediments, presumably of an ancient Georges River antecedent, is also known at Holsworthy (q.v.) where the sequence is up to 15m thick.  

 

 

 

MULGOA

 

Three clay-shale and sandstone quarries within a limited area that is north of Chain of Ponds Creek and west of Bringelly Road.  Entrance road to largest quarry (DP 537922) is just east of "Mulgoa Place" house on Chain of Ponds Road.  The entrance road for the other two quarries, which are near Sovereign Hill, is the road to "Blue Hills" house off the western side of Bringelly Road.  Area part owned by Mulgoa Quarries and part acquired by Department of Housing and others.  Area envisaged for new urban development, partially subject to Badgerry Creek airport development proposal.  Mulgoa Quarries in 1990/91 extracted 137,463 tonnes of shale.   By 1991 one of the small quarries near Sovereign Hill, in Lot 1 (DP 541090), had a large remaining reserve of 13 Mt but the largest quarry holding had in places been worked to the boundaries and had limited remaining reserves.  A visit to the main quarry in the 1980s found good exposures at its northern end of the lower part of the Bringelly Shale.  The base of the Bringelly Shale is noted at various places (to as far east as the Homebush-Rookwood-Strathfield area) for having the most carbonaceous sediments known within the Wianamatta Group and which Chris Herbert (a principal authority on the Wianamatta Group) interpreted as coastal marsh facies.  Typical highly carbonaceous claystone units of this facies may show carbonaceous colouring of continous matted plant remains on almost every parting surface, have many millimetre-sized brittle crumbly lenticules of coal, and occasional bands of massive black claystone.  The former Wearn Industries quarry near Mulgoa also exposed one distinct and  continuous thin seam of bituminous rank coal.  Although reaching only of 10 cm maximum thickness, and locally thinning to less than 3 cm, this coal was very noteworthy as good quality finely banded vitrain.  Also present are some paler claystone bands which may be palaeosols.  Cross bedding in the basal Bringelly Shale in this area was initially thought to be westerly directed and perhaps indicative of onshore wave action prior to the formation passing up into the domination of fluvial plain facies (since glauconite pellets had long been known to occur in the base of the formation), however more extensive examination of quarry exposures in the area later on did not much encourage the retention of this idea.  The facies pattern glimpsed in the Mulgoa quarries is probably complex; the extent to which it was recorded, uncertain.

 

 

 

NEWNES PLATEAU

 

The Newnes Plateau, 5 km NE of Lithgow, has a large area of deeply weathered and friable sandstone.  It is very similar to the deposits of such friable sandstone at Somersby Plateau and both areas have potential to be major sand suppliers to the Sydney market.  Three quarries are working on the Newnes Plateau to extract this sand and older abandonned quarries may also be present.  Road access to these quarries is via Clarence siding area along the railway and main road east of Lithgow.  

 

 

 

NORMANHURST

 

Norman Avenue - Horizontal slickensides on vertical joints in Hawkesbury Sandstone, indicating E-W movement (with north block displaced west).

 

 

 

NORTH PARRAMATTA

 

Thrust fault in Hawkesbury Sandstone, exposed in road cutting.

 

 

 

NORTH SYDNEY

 

Anderson Park - Brecciated zone in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

NULKALBA

 

(Local information)  Aboriginal name for place of ironstone.  Rounded nodules of ironstone abound and are attracted to a hand magnet.

 

 

ORCHARD HILLS

 

Clay extraction for brickmaking.

 

 

PEATS RIDGE

 

Basalt quarry.   Boral Quarries.  Spectacular examples of prismatic jointing in the basalt.

 

 

 

PENRITH, near

 

The Basin.  A dyke, and presumed diatreme.

 

 

 

PITT TOWN

 

A 2.5 square kilometre area of Quaternary sand, up to 9m thick overlies the Tertiary terrace near Pitt Town, the Pitt Town Sand, which might might assist in understanding the origin of the enigmatic Agnes Bank Sand.  The Pitt Town Sand deposit was formerly worked by Farley and Lewers Ltd.  It had been intended to extract 6-8 Mt of sand for the Sydney market from this deposit but the quarrying venture met with great local opposition and did not proceed, as sand trucks could not avoid travelling through the village centre.  As at Agnes Banks Sand, the Pitt Town Sand deposit has the top metre or so turned to grey (like white like at Anges Banks) but the underlying sand is yellow-brown or orange.  

 

The Pitt Town Sand, although comparable to the Agnes Bank Sand is not so high level and disparate from earlier river deposits, and it might be of somewhat younger age, dating from some time after sealevel began declining from it peak high level.  Like the Agnes Bank Sand the Pitt Town Sand might also have been scuptured later by westerly winds, but the ground forms suggestive of this are less distinct than at Agnes Banks and their internal structure has not been examined to investigate if they are dune forms or not.

 

 

 

PROSPECT

 

Prospect Hill intrusion - A major horizontal, laccolithic, intrusion of dolerite, picrite, and minor dunite cumulate base.  Long quarried as blue metal source for Sydney roads.  A source of many zeolites, prehnite and other minerals popular with collectors.   Two major quarries on the hill, last owned by CSR and Boral.

 

Brickworks and quarry in Bringelly Shale.  Boral Bricks.   A reserve of 5.5 Mt in 1991 but by then becoming inactive.

 

 

 

PYMBLE

 

A pelecypod ('Unio') found in Ashfield Shale.

 

Land Cove River.  Columnar sandstone.

 

 

 

REGENTVILLE

 

Mulgoa Creek.  Very good natural outcrop of Ashfield Shale occurs along Mulgoa Creek, forming some 10m high spectacular cliff-like exposure which shows fresh dark grey laminite of the Ashfield Shale overlain by a weathered zone (possibly passing up into Bringelly Shale?) that in turn is overlain by Tertiary river gravels.  Good natural exposure like this of the Ashfield Shale in the Sydney region is rare.

 

 

 

RICHMOND

 

Lowlands Formation.  The Lowlands Formation is named after the Richmond Lowlands, the name given to agricultural land along the Hawkesbury River north of Richmond.  The terrace of the top of the Lowlands Formation covers about 50 square kilometers, extending from north of Castlereagh downstream to Pitt Town.  It may be correlated, at least broadly, with the Cranebrook Formation [see under "Castlereagh (Upper Castlereagh)"] although opinion on this has varied, particularly between geologists and soil scientists.  Like the Cranebrook Formation, the Lowlands Formation has basal gravel and this is up to 12m thick near Richmond.  Also like the Cranebrook Formation it contains fragments of charcoal and wood, which could enable more dating than has so far been attempted.  The unit overlies the Hawkesbury Sandstone near North Richmond bridge and overlies Ashfield Shale drownstream from there.

 

 

 

RIVERSTONE

 

Burfitt Road.  Bringelly Shale quarry.  Abax company.  Extraction history unknown and may not be active.  Reserve calculated at commencement was 2 Mt.

 

 

 

RYDE

 

Dyke and altered sandstone.

 

 

 

SHEARSBY'S WALLPAPER

 

A famous road cutting site 1 km south of the abandonned Taemas bridge on the old Taemas Road which has long been of concern that over-collecting might destroy it.  The "wallpaper" consists of closely packed small brachiopods (Spinella yassensis) exposed on bedding planes of the early Devonian Taemas Limestone.  The brachiopods have been easily taken in great numbers from the site by generations of collectors.  Most have taken loose ones that lie in the roadway gutters etc., however the ever-present danger has been of destructive removal from the "wallpaper" exposure itself.  There is also the danger that the "wallpaper" will fall and disintegrate by natural weathering.  "Imperative" preservation measures (weatherproofing, fencing, etc.) have been recommended for decades; current status unknown.

 

 

 

ST. ALBANS - CENTRAL McDONALD

 

At St. Albans and Central McDonald on the McDonald River two creek valley enter from the east (Wellums Creek near St. Albans and Wrights Creek near Central McDonald) which have been extensively alluviated, seemingly a feature along much of the McDonald River catchment.  A lake, Wellum Lake, also occurs in the final stretch of Wellum Creek.  Mining lease applications (MLAs 32-43 of Sydney Division) were lodged over portions of these valley for sand extraction, and reserves of 40 Mt estimated to be present there.  Exploratory drilling also found moderate quality peat to be present, beneath several metres of sand and clay and underland by further alluvial sand.

 

 

 

ST. MARYS

 

St Marys is the type area of the St Marys Formation which comprises Tertiary sediments filling small channels cut into the Wianamatta Group shales.  The formation is now preserved at many isolated localities in the valleys of Mulgoa Creek, South Creek and Eastern Creek.  The type section is the railway cutting 500m east of St Marys railway station on the Great Western Line.  The gravels of the St Marys Formation consist mostly of quartz and angular shale and sandstone fragments (most likely Triassic sediments), but have some interesting components such as occasional silicified wood, and cobbles or boulders of subangular silcrete.  Some of these channelways may have been of very protracted existence, spanning episode(s) of lateritisation, and layers of concentrated/transported rounded ironstone pisolites have been reported in the formation at some localities.  Val Smith, who perhaps examined more of this formation than anyone else, was of the opinion that the pisolites in places (including at the type section) had been transported.  Further complicating matters is the belief that the formation has also been lateritised subsequent to its deposition.  The St Marys Formation could be broadly of the same age as the Rickabys Creek Gravel, but the distinction is that no rock types derived from the rocks beneath or beyond the Sydney Basin (Lachlan Fold Belt) have been found in the St Marys Formation.  Further reasoning about the age of the St Marys Formation has been engaged in but in the absence of direct evidence is highly speculative.  Some of this reasoning/theory runs thus:  oldest (Eocene?) sands of the main river

(early Nepean-Hawkebury) is Maroota Sand; the different Rickabys Creek Gravel may be post-Eocene;

so too might be the similarly consolidated/ferruginised St Marys Creek Formation, deposited between two periods of duricrust development which Smith suggested may have been in the Oligocene and late Miocene (Smith endeavoured to relate this to falls in sea level).  Thus a late Oligocene age is favoured by Smith's mode of reasoning.  Subsequent work on relating Sydney geomorphology to sea level change is not known of.

 

    

 

ST. IVES

 

Quarry in shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Owner Greenwood.  An amount of 799 tonnes was extracted in 1990/91.  

 

 

 

SCHOFIELDS

Townson Road.   Bringelly Shale quarry.  PGH Industries.  Extracted 145,567 tonnes is 1990/91 and reserve was then 4.5 Mt.

 

 

 

SOMERSBY

 

Northwest of Gosford there is an irregular N-S elongate area of the Somersby Plateau, about 10 km by 20 km, through Narara, via Somersby, Peats Ridge and extending further north, which has extensive reserves of deeply weathered friable Hawkesbury Sandstone.   This phenomenon is very similar to what is seen at Newnes Plateau, plus it has areas of ferruginous weathering similar to what is seen developed at likely Tertiary surfaces south of Sydney.  Three quarrying operations were early started to extract sand from the weathered sandstone profile - Calga Sands, Calga and Pioneer Pty Ltd (Pioneer Sand Quarry), and Somersby Sands, and additional sites to these may also have commenced extraction in recent times.       

 

 

 

ST. PETERS

 

Various brickpits (now all gone).  Fossils. 

 

 

 

SUMMER HILL  

 

Fyle's  Brickworks.   Fyle's Brickworks was located along the western bank of Long Cove Creek between Canterbury Road and the railway viaduct.  More precisely it may have been just west of where the N-S goods line now crosses the creek line.  All this land was aquired by Mugo Scott Flour Mill.  A sketch of the area by H.G. Lloyd in 1864 also shows some open-topped updraught kilns on the western side of the creek at the same place.  A pair of two storey semi-attached houses at 41-43 Norton are believed to have been built almost certainly from Fyle's bricks.  Fyle's brickworks ceased operating in 1882.

 

Meads' brickpit.  Between 1880 and 1886 Charles and Joseph Mead were listed in the Sands directory as being at the bottom of Grosvenor Crescent near the creek, between the Long Cove viaduct and Parramatta Road.  They operated brick pit here, close to the creek (Long Cove Creek).  The exact site is not known.  An old photo (ca. 1880) of land between the Battle Bridge over Parramatta Road and the viaduct appears to show spoil heaps on the western side of the creek about half way between Parramatta Road and the viaduct (or possibly closer to the viaduct than that).  The area was later wild or derelict land (Summer Hill 'wilderness') and is now a reserve.  Hearsay is that is that some people used to dig in it for old bottles, and if so the brick pit may have been filled with rubbish, which later proved the source of the old bottle finds(?).   The present reserve here was named Cadigal Reserve in 1994.   Unknown if any archaeological studies were done.  Joseph Mead's cottage still survives, at No. 6 Grosvenor Crescent.

 

 

 

SYDNEY

 

Saunders Quarries, Harris Street.  The shale underlying the 40 ft thick quarried bed of sandstone contain fossil plants.  A basalt dyke (altered to clay) was also cut in the quarry.

- Wooloomooloo Bay.  Close to the steps leading down from Victoria Street North.  Excavated shale yielded fossil plants and fish.

 

 

 

THORNTON

 

Silcrete.  Almost 1 km from Woodberry Swamp is a site with silcrete gravel which appears to have been utilised as an implements site.  It was recorded in a survey by P. Kuskie in 1994 of DP 559519 when Lot 1 was proposed for residential development.

 

 

 

ULLADULLA

 

Glendonites.  Glendonites, glacial erratics, and marine fossils occur at Waden Head, about 1.5 km east of Ulladulla.

 

 

 

VINEYARDS

 

Bringelly Shale quarry.  Austral Bricks.  Believed inactive.  Reserve 7.8 Mt.

 

 

 

WAHROONGA

 

Fox Valley.  Low angle thrust in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

 

WARNERVILLE

 

Mountain Road.  Shale quarry and brick plant near Buttondeer Creek.    Zacuba company.  An amount of about 100,000 tonnes was extracted in 1990/91 and the reserve was 1 Mt.

 

 

 

WENTWORTH FALLS

 

Gladstone Colliery - In Jamison Valley at base of cliff below Fairmont Resort, which is between the Leura Golf Course and the Jamison Valley.   Construction work for this mine began in 1884 or earlier.  The mine operated to begin producing coal between 1885 and 1896 but was never truly successful and faced very considerable engineering difficulties.  The mine was able to extract only about 200 tons of coal, mostly or entirely in 1885-1887 (requires checking).  The coal was hauled by a ropeway up the cliff and via aerial ropeway across the Valley of the Waters and on to a siding on the main railway.  This siding, the Gladstone siding, was later redeveloped into Leura railway station in 1891 and thus the coal siding was the nucleus to Leura township coming into existence.   The 1891 first platform and waiting room were built and paid for by land developer William Eyre.  After the conversion from coal siding to passenger platform (even though unattended initially), Leura (at that time known as Lurline) was about to have its raison d'etre changed.  Those able to afford respite from the  summer heat had discovered a hillside protected from westerly winds and with the fancied healing powers of the mountain mists. Henceforth, Leura would be a popular tourist destination.  The mine holding was apparently sold after the propietor was gaoled for fraud.  One of the main mine buildings was re-erected to serve as Wentworth Falls Catholic church between 1896 and 1912.  Also see the Katoomba entry for some further ramifications as it is likely that the equipment from it was re-used to construct the ropeway used to bring the oil shale from the Ruined Castle mine to the head of the Katoomba Incline.   In 2001 the Blue Mountains Council took note of some relics of the mining that still survived, including remains of the winding engine, as development began to encroach on the area.

 

 

 

WETHERILL PARK

 

Shale quarry.  Camide company.  Discontinued.

 

 

 

WILLOUGHBY

 

Mashman Brothers pottery operated at Willoughby in 1900-1930.   Also sometimes referred to as having been in Chatswood.  [Address unknown at present.]

 

 

 

WINMALEE (YELLOW ROCK)

 

Flagging stone quarry in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

 

 

 

WOODFORD (South from)

 

Tobys Glen.  Diatreme.  This diatreme is still heavily forested, not cleared like others in the Blue Mountains.  It is difficult of access and is rarely visited.  It can be reached by foot or bike, as a round trip of about 25 km.  It is an almost circular depression surrounded by Hawkesbury Sandstone.  Its soil supports a beautiful stand of bluegums (Eucalyptus deanei).   It was recorded by Adamson (1969. NSW Geological Survey Records, 11[2], 93-114).

 

 

 

WYEE

 

Bridge Road.  Shale extraction area (Mining Lease 554 and Special Lease 84/7).  Initially operated by Montoro.  Then by Boral Roofing Tiles.  An amount of 27,912 tonnes was extracted in 1990/91 and reserves were then 2 Mt.