Provenance of Carboniferous sandstones in the central and southern parts of the Pennine Basin, UK: evidence from detrital zircon ages

New U–Pb isotopic analyses of detrital zircon grains from Namurian and Westphalian sandstones in the central and southern parts of the Pennine Basin are combined with published analyses from the same region, to assess existing views on the nature and location of the source areas that supplied the clastic sediment. The study confirms that most sandstones were derived from distant areas to the north, west and south, and that a local source, in the Wales–Brabant High, also supplied sediment at times. The northern sources are thought to lie mainly in Laurentia (East Greenland), with some input from Baltica (Norway). Most sandstones entering from the west are thought to have been supplied from areas of Avalonian basement, with some components recycled from sediments that were themselves derived from the Caledonian belt that lay to the north. An exception is the Clifton Rock: its source is thought to lie entirely in the Irish Caledonides or in southern Scotland. Sandstones supplied from the south contain significant numbers of late Devonian and Carboniferous grains, indicating the inclusion of material eroded from the active Variscan orogenic belt in Europe. Northern provenance prevailed during Namurian and early Langsettian times, then alternated with western supply until the late Langsettian. Western input then dominated through most of Duckmantian times, until superseded in the late Duckmantian by supply from the Variscan orogen. The Woolley Edge Rock, now shown to be an isolated member of the northern group, entered the area just before the earliest sandstone of Variscan origin.