CZERWIONKA NA GÓRNYM ŚLĄSKU (CZERWIONKA IN THE UPPER SILESIA)



Commune: Czerwionka-Leszczyny (pow. rybnicki, woj. śląskie)

Framework element or context represented:
Carboniferous flora and sedimentary environment.

Primary geological/geomorphological interest:
Carboniferous logs and other plant debris in fluvial palaeochannel deposits.

Comparative assessment justification:
The site have no equivalent in the Silesian Coal Basin. Other site of upright Calamites in the similar stratigraphic position noted at Brynów just not exist. It is a unique outcrop of Carboniferous trunks in Poland.

Protection status and accessibility:
Proposed for protection; the brick-yard is actually accessible but threated by the recultivation.

Character of site: Abandoned brick-yard.

Area: 5 ha

Altitude: 270 m a.s.l.

Lithology: sandstones, silstones, claystones

Discipline: Palaeobiology, Palaeoenvironment, Stratigraphy of Phanerozoic

Process Age: *all periods

Bedrock Age: Carboniferous, *all periods




Description of primary interest:
About 15 m of deposits crop out in the abandoned brickyard. There are coal-bearing Mudstone Series of Westphalian (Orzesze Beds) with a coal layer 0,6 m. The palaeoenvironmental of Mudstone Series in Czerwionka is interpreted as alluvial plain. One deep river channel bottom is overlain by sandstone with many coalified fragments of trunks, branches and roots of Cordaites, Calamites, Lepidodendrons and other plant debris. Most of logs are filled with the sand and they are orientated transversally to the channel axis. The maximum diameter of a log reaches 30 cm. The greatest observed logs length is 4,5 m and many of them are 2-3m. In the northern part of brickyard the upright trunks of Sigillaria are visible. Most likely they were buried up in live position within the Carboniferous forest.

Literature:

BRZYSKI B., GRADZIŃSKI R., KRZANOWSKA R. 1976–Upright Calamite stems from Brynów and conditions of their burial (English sum.). Ann. Soc. Geol. Pol. 46, 1-2: 159-182.     GRADZIŃSKI R., DOKTOR M., BRZYSKI B. 1982–Accumulation of drifted logs and other large plant debris in Carboniferous fluvial channel ad Czerwionka, Upper Silesia. Acta Geol. Pol. 32, 1-2: 69-83.     GRADZIŃSKI R. DOKTOR M. 1983–Peat compaction as a factor in burial of upright stems in Upper Carboniferous Coal Measures, Upper Silesia, Poland. Bull. Ac. Pol. Sci. ser. sci. terre. 31 (1-4): 59-64.     GRADZIŃSKI R. DOKTOR M. 1995–Upright stems and their burial conditions in coal-bearing Mudstones Series (Upper Carboniferous), Upper Silesia Coal Basin, Poland. Studia Geol. Pol. Vol. 108: 129-147.     JURECZKA J. 2001–Outcrops in the geodiversity conservation concept of the Upper Silesia Coal Basin - southern Poland (English sum.). Prz. Geol. 49, 11: 1101-1106.     RADOMSKI A.,  GRADZIŃSKI R. 1981–Facies sequences in the Upper Carboniferous alluvial coal-bearing, Upper Silesia, Poland. Studia Geol. Pol. 68: 29-41.