Go to this location: What3Words ///home.yard.lion
The bedrock beneath Birmingham was formed roughly 250 – 200 million years ago during the Triassic period. Sediments such as sand, silt and mud settled at the bottom of vast waterbodies, and over millions of years compressed and hardened into rock. Click here for a more detailed view of the geology of Birmingham.
Imagine the outer circle route as an analogue clock with its centre in Digbeth and whose hands show five minutes past seven – this is the approximate route of a fault-line running deep below the city, separating two different types of rock. Broadly speaking, to the left of this line (Aston, Birchfield, Lozells, Winson Green, Bearwood, Edgbaston, Harbourne etc.), the rock is sandstone – shown green; and to the right (Hodge Hill, Stechford, Yardley, Acocks Green, Hall Green, Kings Heath, Cotteridge, Bournville etc.), the rock is mudstone, shown purple.
Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI (2024) and OS data © Crown copyright and database right (2024)
Charles Lapworth (1842 – 1920) was a pioneer in the study of geology, eventually becoming the first professor of Geology at the University of Birmingham. The Lapworth Museum of geology is open to the public at the University’s Edgbaston campus, off the A38 Bristol. This booklet from 1907 ‘A sketch of the geology of the Birmingham district. By C. Lapworth. With contributions by W.W. Watts and W.J. Harrison’, was written by Charles Lapworth.