Ashfield Shale is part of the
Wianamatta group of
sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...
s in the
Sydney Basin. It lies directly on contemporaneously eroded
Hawkesbury sandstone
Sydney sandstone is the common name for Sydney Basin Hawkesbury Sandstone, one variety of which is historically known as Yellowblock, and also as "yellow gold" a sedimentary rock named after the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, where this ...
or the
Mittagong formation
The Mittagong Formation is a sedimentary rock unit in the Sydney Basin in eastern Australia.
Formation
Laid down in the Triassic Period, it may be seen as an interval of interbedded fine-grained sandstone and shale between the Ashfield Shale (a ...
. These rock types were formed in the
Triassic
The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago (Year#Abbreviations yr and ya, Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 ...
Period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
.
It is named after the Sydney suburb of
Ashfield. Some of the early research was performed at the old Ashfield Brickworks Quarry. This rock type is often associated with the
Inner West
The Inner West of Sydney is an area directly west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. The suburbs that make up the Inner West are predominantly located along the southern shore of Port Jackson (Parramatta River ...
and
North Shore of the city. However, it has also been recorded at
Penrith,
Revesby,
Bilpin and
Mount Irvine.
Description
Ashfield Shale comprises black
mudstones and grey shales with frequent
sideritic clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
ironstone
Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...
bands. The thickness ranges between 45 and 64 metres.
It is 20 metres thick at the
Sydney Olympic Site.
The chemistry of the rock is typical of shales, with high iron levels, and some
iron sulphide
Iron sulfide or Iron sulphide can refer to range of chemical compounds composed of iron and sulfur.
Minerals
By increasing order of stability:
* Iron(II) sulfide, FeS
* Greigite, Fe3S4 (cubic)
* Pyrrhotite, Fe1−xS (where x = 0 to 0.2) (monocli ...
and low calcium levels. The geology of the
shale lenses
A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...
within the Hawkesbury Sandstone is chemically similar to the Ashfield Shale.
At Turramurra 33 metres remains and formerly there was a good deep exposure of it at the Railway Station until this suffered shotcreting.
Small scale
bedding
Bedding, also known as bedclothes or bed linen, is the materials laid above the mattress of a bed for hygiene, warmth, protection of the mattress, and decorative effect. Bedding is the removable and washable portion of a human sleeping environm ...
is abundant. The shales are sandy at the top of the sequence. There are up to ten bands in a fifteen-metre section. The fine grained silty sediments were laid down in a low energy, south-east flowing
deltaic
A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or (more rarel ...
setting, near the shores of a shallow sea. Ashfield Shale underlies the
Prospect dolerite intrusion in
Pemulwuy
Pemulwuy (also rendered as Pimbloy, Pemulvoy, Pemulwoy, Pemulwy or Pemulwye, or sometimes by contemporary Europeans as Bimblewove, Bumbleway or Bembulwoyan) (c. 1750 – 2 June 1802) was a Bidjigal man of the Eora nation, born around 1750 in t ...
.
Natural selection in which the Ashfield Shale is completely exposed is rare. However, it can be seen at railway and roadside cuttings, as well as old quarries. With weathering and exposure, the shale becomes a paler colour.
Weathering of the shale units produces a reddish/brown
podsolic soil, often with poor drainage, such as that in the
Cumberland Plain
The Cumberland Plain, an IBRA biogeographic region, is a relatively flat region lying to the west of Sydney CBD in New South Wales, Australia. Cumberland Basin is the preferred physiographic and geological term for the low-lying plain of the P ...
.
These clay soils are recognised as being reactive with an appreciable
shrink-swell capacity.
Engineering and construction
The adjacent Hawkesbury Sandstone is considered a safer bedrock than the (less stable and
laminated
Lamination is the technique/process of manufacturing a material in multiple layers, so that the composite material achieves improved strength, stability, sound insulation, appearance, or other properties from the use of the differing materia ...
) Ashfield Shale for building construction. In 2005, the construction of the
Lane Cove Tunnel
The Lane Cove Tunnel is an A$1.1 billion, 3.6 km twin-tunnel tollway in Sydney, Australia, which connects the M2 Motorway at North Ryde with the Gore Hill Freeway at Artarmon. It is owned by toll road operator Transurban and forms par ...
was affected by the collapse of an exit ramp excavation, through Ashfield Shale.
Difficulties may be encountered where the Ashfield Shale interfaces with the
Hawkesbury Sandstone
Sydney sandstone is the common name for Sydney Basin Hawkesbury Sandstone, one variety of which is historically known as Yellowblock, and also as "yellow gold" a sedimentary rock named after the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, where this ...
and the
Mittagong Formation
The Mittagong Formation is a sedimentary rock unit in the Sydney Basin in eastern Australia.
Formation
Laid down in the Triassic Period, it may be seen as an interval of interbedded fine-grained sandstone and shale between the Ashfield Shale (a ...
.
Flora
Ashfield Shale is associated with the
critically endangered Blue Gum High Forest
The Blue Gum High Forest of the Sydney Basin Bioregion is a wet sclerophyll forest found in the northern parts of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It has been classified as critically endangered, under the New South Wales government's ''Threa ...
and
Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest
The Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest (STIF) is dry sclerophyll forest community of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that is typically found in the Inner West and Northern region of Sydney. It is also among the three of these plant communities ...
.
Industry and agriculture
In the earlier days of Sydney, the Ashfield Shale supported a number of quarries. The shale provided a suitable raw material for brickmaking.
Sydney soils based on shale are not particularly fertile. But at
Parramatta
Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...
they proved more suitable to agriculture than those at
Farm Cove, in the early days of the
First Fleet.
Fossils
Ashfield Shale is considered a freshwater
lacustrine
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...
paleoenvironment. It was gradually inundated by brackish water, then shallow marine waters over a long period of time.
Fossils are not common in this stratum, however, fossil
bivalves, plants,
isopods, insects and
amphibians have been recorded. One outstanding example being of a
Paracyclotosaurus
''Paracyclotosaurus'' (meaning "Near Wheeled Lizard") is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian, which would have appeared similar to today's salamander – but much larger, measuring up to long and weighing between . It lived in the Middle ...
at
St Peters, 2.25 metres long. It is one of the most complete
mastodonsaurid skeletons ever recovered. ''Notobrachyops'' is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
brachyopid temnospondyl
Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') is a diverse order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished worldwide during the Carbo ...
amphibian. It is known from a skull roof impression found in the Ashfield Shale at the old Hurstville Brick Company quarry at
Mortdale
Mortdale is a suburb located in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mortdale is located 20 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the St George area. Mortdale is situated in the ...
.
The Ashfield Shale has also yielded a shark species, a
lungfish
Lungfish are freshwater vertebrates belonging to the order Dipnoi. Lungfish are best known for retaining ancestral characteristics within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air, and ancestral structures within Sarcopterygii, i ...
species, six species of
paleoniscid fish, a species of
holostean fish, and a subholostean fish.
Fossil fauna
References
{{Reflist
Geologic formations of Australia
Triassic Australia
Shale formations
Fossiliferous stratigraphic units of Oceania
Paleontology in New South Wales
Geology of New South Wales