Abstract Carboniferous rocks within the Cumbria and northern Pennines region are bound by the Maryport-Stublick-Ninety Fathom Fault System, which forms the northern boundary of the Lake District and Alston blocks (Fig. 37). In the Pennines, the succession occupies the Alston and Askrigg blocks and the intervening Stainmore Trough, a broadly east-west trending graben. Carboniferous strata also flank the Lake District Block, occurring at outcrop in north Cumbria, Furness and Cartmel (south Cumbria) and the Vale of Eden, and in the subsurface in west Cumbria. The Askrigg Block succession is separated from that of the Craven Basin (Chapter 11), to the south, by the Craven Fault System. All of the stages of the Carboniferous, with the exception of the Stephanian, are present at outcrop. The oldest Tournaisian strata occur at outcrop along the flanks of the Lake District Block and within the Stainmore Trough. They are represented by continental and peritidal deposits (Ravenstonedale Group), and locally associated with volcanic rocks (Cockermouth Volcanic Formation of north Cumbria). The Ravenstonedale Group is diachronous, occurring later on the structural highs, with deposition during Chadian times on the Askrigg Block and Holkerian times on the Alston Block. The Ravenstonedale Group is overlain by upper Tournaisian to upper Visean platform carbonate rocks (Great Scar Limestone Group), which initially developed on the flanks of the Lake District Block, but by late Asbian times extended across the entire region (Mitchell 1978).