Ellington Colliery did intend working the coal off Amble/Hauxley and did drive roadways through the Causey Park Dyke, (I think they went through the Acklington Dyke as well as they were quite close together out there).
We were told that to the north of the Dyke the coal rank increased to such an extent that it became unsuitable for the Alcan power station, the main customer. This seems an unlikely reason as it had all been sampled by offshore drilling in the 70s and they were well aware of the quality. Whatever the reason the drive for the Amble coal was abandoned in the early 90s I believe, so a couple of roadways made it through, but no production units were installed.
Those roadways were in the K seam, AKA the 'Brass Thill' which I believe splits in the Broomhill area into the Top (or Princess) and the Main (or Duke) seams (K1 and K2).
Seams at Ellington were worked to the safety limit of 60 meters below the sea bed. This would apply to the Yard or G seam ('Albert' in the Broomhill Area,) and the F seam ('Radcliffe' seam in the Broomhill area)
just out of interest the two dykes are shown here, if you extrapolate them out into the bay to a point where they come together, this is roughly where the Ellington drivages passed through them. ('N' numbers are boreholes, dashed lines are faults, the dotted line is the outcrop of the overlying Permian rocks)
|