The correlation and sequence architecture of the Ormskirk Sandstone Formation in the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Group of the east Irish sea basin, NW England

The existing stratigraphic nomenclature applied to the Early and Middle Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Group in NW England has resulted from more than 150 years of geological investigation, but is characterized by a lithostratigraphic system that is insufficiently flexible to allow for variations in lithology and sedimentary facies within a continental depositional system. A revised well correlation based on the detrital mineralogical and chemical composition of the Ormskirk Sandstone Formation in four offshore wells, that is then extended to provide near-basin-wide well correlations using a regional shale marker, confirms previously suggested but unproven diachroneity at the top of the Sherwood Sandstone Group. It also reveals the presence of incised valleys filled by stacked amalgamated fluvial channel sandstones and cut into previously deposited aeolian and sandflat sequences as well as older fluvial channel sandstones. The combination of well correlations indicates that the valleys were incised by a fluvial system flowing NW from the Cheshire Basin into the East Irish Sea Basin and then west towards the Peel and Kish Bank basins. The stratal geometry of the upper part of the Sherwood Sandstone Group is suggested to conform to models of climatically mediated alternations of fluvial degradation and aggradation in response to changes in the relationship between sediment flux and stream discharge. This model is supported in the Sherwood Sandstone Group by climatically driven variations in the non-channelized facies which record upward wetting and drying cycles that can be locally tied to fluvial incision surfaces, and suggest a hierarchy of at least three levels of climatic cyclicity recorded within the sedimentary succession. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.