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Earth Science Conservation Review
| Makenny Townland stream, near The Hollow House | Tyrone |
| Site number: | 246 | File Number: | H25 |
| ESCC: | EO | ||
| Locality Type: | Stream section | Status: | ASSI |
| Grid Reference: | H251552 Centroid | ||
| Google maps: | 54.44516,-7.61309 | ||
| County: | Tyrone | Council area: | Fermanagh & Omagh District Council |
| Period: | Carboniferous | ||
| Stages: | Namurian, Visean | ||
| Lithostrat: | Ballinamallard Mudstone Formation, Kilskeery Group | ||
| Site Description | |
|---|---|
| Highlights: | |
The lithologies exposed in this stream section are representative of the Ballinamallard Mudstone Formation. Grey to greenish-grey calcareous mudstone near the top of the section contains miospores and faint traces of plants. | |
| Description: | |
The incised stream section is located on the east side of the C-class road between Irvinestown and Ballinamallard in Makenny Townland about 80m SW of the Hollow House. Whilst exposure in the stream is good, the section is incomplete but is believed to consist of about 40m of strata, which are gently inclined (5-6 deg.) to the NW. The section is cut by a vein of barytes 0.5m thick that appears to follow a fault line. On the basis of a relatively undisturbed (faulted) outcrop of the formation hereabouts, this section of strata is thought to occur just below the top of the formation and about 500m south of the inferred position of the Killadeas-Seskinore Fault. By far the dominant lithology in the section is greyish-red mudstones and mud-flake breccias with occasional thin beds of fine-grained sandstone. In the uppermost 15m of strata, at the NW end of the section reddish-brown mudstones predominate at the base but grey and greenish-grey calcareous mudstones become equally common towards the top. These grey mudstones contain the darker coloured (grey) filmy impression of irregular thin plant fragments, which are as yet unidentified, and, more importantly, well-preserved miospores including: Densosporites anulatus Knoxisporites stephanephorus Lycospora pusilla Punctatisporites sp. Convolutispora cf. florida Cyclogranisporites sp. Reticulatisporites carnosus Savitrisporites nux Vallatisporites sp. The miospore species R. carnosus is one of two index species for the NC Miospore Zone, equivalent to the late Brigantian and Pendleian stages. | |
| Interpretation: | |
All the strata assigned to the Kilskeery Group, amounting to an estimated 2200m, are red-beds and were deposited in a non-marine sedimentary basin. In the Fintona Block there is evidence that two non-marine basins developed almost synchronously, either side of an upstanding ridge of metamorphic and Lower Palaeozoic rocks. Subsidence of the northern basin, in which was deposited the Greenan Sandstone Formation, commenced in early Brigantian times and continued into at least the Pendleian. The southern basin, in which was deposited the Kilskeery Group, began to subside somewhat earlier, in the late Asbian, but continued to receive sediments until Pendleian times. As for as can be ascertained from the present outcrop pattern these basins were not connected. In Co. Fermanagh the largest outcrop of sediments of late Asbian- Pendleian age is of Leitrim Group strata on Cuilcagh Mountain and Slieve Beagh (Subareas-1 & 5) and elsewhere. The Kilskeery Group of the Tempo-Lisbellaw Segment (Fintona Block) thus correlates with as much as 900m of deltaic, sabkha and intertidal deposits and dark, pyritous marine shales comprising the Meenymore Formation (NM Miospore Zone) to Briscloonagh Sandstone Formation (NC Miospore Zone) succession in the Northwest Carboniferous Basin. The sedimentary rocks that constitute the three formations of the Kilskeery Group record the history of punctuated subsidence of a non-marine basin. Gradual and sustained subsidence of this basin in late Asbian times accommodated the 1000m of sand-dominated sediments of the Topped Mountain Formation. Accelerated uplift in the early Brigantian, of the southern margin of this northern land area led to increased erosion and southward progradation of alluvial fans, in the process depositing largely coarse-grained and conglomeratic debris of the Ballyreagh Formation. A gradual diminution in the rate of uplift of the metamorphic and Lower Palaeozic massif in the late Brigantian led to its eventual burial by the distal alluvial plain and playa-lake sediments of the Ballinamallard Mudstone Formation in the south, and possibly by the Greenan Sandstone in the north (Mitchell & Owens, 1990). This situation persisted into Pendleian times at which point the sedimentary record ends. | |
| Notes: | |
For information on other sites in Subarea-4 see; Key Site 1177 - Subarea-4; Fintona Block. | |
| Keywords | |
|---|---|
| Rocks: | Breccia, Mudstone, Sand, Sandstone |
| Fossil Groups: | Miospore, Plant |
| Fossil List: | Reticulatisporites carnosus |
| Access | |
|---|---|
| Approach: | The section is located on the east side of the C-class road between Irvinestown and Ballinamallard in Makenny Townland about 80m SW of the Hollow House. |
| References (1) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Blieck, A., 1991. Reappraisal of the heterostracans (agnathan vertebrates ) of Northern Ireland. Irish Journal of Earth Sciences, vol. 11 pt. 1, pp.65-69. | |||
| Map(s): | GSNI (1982) 1:50,000 Solid Geology of Sheet 45 (Enniskillen). | ||
| Record type: | ESCR report | ||
| Entered by: | Doughty, P.J. | ||
| Enlander, I., Dempster, M. & Doughty, P., 2026. Makenny Townland stream, near The Hollow House, County Tyrone, site details. [In] Earth Science Conservation Review. https://www.habitas.org.uk/escr/site.php?item=246. Accessed on 2026-11-06. |
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