‘A hard rain's a-gonna fall’: torrential rain, flash floods and desert lakes in the Late Triassic Arden Sandstone of Central England

Abstract

The Arden Sandstone Formation of central and western England is a thin but conspicuous arenaceous unit within the Late Triassic Mercia Mudstone Group. Sedimentological and palaeontological data point to lacustrine depositional conditions, in contrast to the red desert mudstones above and below which were deposited as continental dryland desert floodplains. The Arden Sandstone records deposits of the lake margins and may be the high stand lateral equivalent of the halite and gypsum deposits which formed in the lake centre. The Carnian age of the Arden Sandstone potentially links it to the Carnian Pluvial Episode, marking the coalescence, spread and freshening of the formerly saline desert lakes, and deposition of sandy, fluvial and lacustrine deposits, during the wetter climate that prevailed for at least a million years.