Ganister

Ganister

Ganister is a type of rock that is typically found beneath coal seams in the Coal Measures. It is a fine-grained sandstone or siltstone that contains a high amount of silica. Ganister is an important source of raw material for the production of silica bricks and other refractories. It is occasionally found in strata alongside mudrock, fluvial sandstone channels, coal seams, clay-ironstone beds, and fireclay.From: A Geology for Engineers [2017], Newcomen-type pumping engines in collieries and ironworks on the north side of the Don valley in the Rotherham area of South Yorkshire in the eighteenth century [2018]

Sedimentary Rocks

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Purchase Book

Published in F.G.H. Blyth, M. H. de Freitas, A Geology for Engineers, 2017

F.G.H. Blyth, M. H. de Freitas

Ganister is a fine-grained siliceous sandstone or siltstone which is found underlying coal seams in the Coal Measures; it is an important source of raw material for the manufacture of silica bricks and other refractories.

Newcomen-type pumping engines in collieries and ironworks on the north side of the Don valley in the Rotherham area of South Yorkshire in the eighteenth century

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Journal Information

Published in The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology, 2018

John Hunter

The Sheffield-Rotherham area is underlain by part of the lower and middle Pennine Coal Measures Group, of Upper Carboniferous age. These strata consist of mudrock (also called shale), discontinuous fluvial sandstone channels, numerous coal seams, some beds of clay-ironstone and occasional thin beds of ganister and fireclay. These mineral resources have been exploited since the Roman period and, from late Medieval times onwards, they supported an important cutlery and edge-tool manufacturing industry which developed around Sheffield’s abundant sites of water-power and its extensive charcoal-producing woodland. Subsequent industrial expansion included coke-fuelled cast and forged iron production, followed by conversion of iron into steel, although the raw material required for the latter product was imported and not of local origin.

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Sedimentary Rocks

Newcomen-type pumping engines in collieries and ironworks on the north side of the Don valley in the Rotherham area of South Yorkshire in the eighteenth century