Abstract About a dozen workers were active in researching the hydrogeology of the Permo-Triassic sandstones of the northern Cheshire Basin, UK, in the 19th century. They were mostly amateur geologists, members of the geological societies of Liverpool and Manchester. Spurred by the water resource requirement of the two cities and by the formation of the societies, research burgeoned from the mid 1800s. Over the latter part of the century, a conceptual model of flow in the sandstones was developed which has most of the essential features of a present-day conceptual model, including intergranular and fracture flow, fault influence on flow, recharge reduction by drift and urban land cover, overspill recharge, influent river recharge (including estuarine intrusion), and cross-boundary flow. Water balances were undertaken to assess aquifer yield and attempt to understand well yields. Pollution from sewers, river water, estuary water, and graveyards was considered, as was water/rock interaction. Experimental work demonstrated: the proportionality between flow rate and pressure difference (1869); the importance of fractures to well yields (1850); the principle of specific yield (1869); the effects of lamination on unsaturated flow (1877); and the shape of breakthrough curves is sigmoidal (1878). Most of these findings were independent of previous work elsewhere. Whether this is because of the local, essentially amateur environment in which the researchers were operating, or whether this lack of communication was essentially a feature of research at this time, is uncertain. However, it does have implications for general theories of science.

Abstract There is increasing evidence that groundwater flow in many parts of the major Permo-Triassic sandstone aquifers of NW England is influenced strongly by predominantly N–S-trending faults. These structural controls on groundwater flow may only become apparent when the aquifers are subject to abstraction stress. A series of case examples are presented, from the Fylde Sandstone aquifer north of Preston, and from the sandstone aquifers of the Lower Mersey Basin, Manchester and Wirral areas. In these studies the ‘compartmentalization’ of the aquifers by faults has been recognized in field investigations and also in numerical modelling studies related to groundwater resources development on both local and aquifer-wide scales.

Abstract The recent shale gas revolution originated in the USA in the late 1990s with the exploration of the Carboniferous Barnett Shale in Texas. Success in a number of additional basins in North America, such as the Marcellus, Eagle Ford and Bakken basins, stimulated a search for similar opportunities elsewhere around the world. Among the shales and basins targeted by industry was the Carboniferous Bowland Shale (and equivalents) in northern England. The initial premise that the Barnett Shale represented an excellent analogue for the Bowland Shale led to over-optimistic reserve estimates that have since been shown to be largely incorrect. On the basis of visual inspection of wellbore cores, the Carboniferous Barnett and Bowland shales appear to be very similar. Unfortunately, it is there that the similarity ends. Research carried out for the UK Unconventional Hydrocarbons project has highlighted important differences adversely impacting prospectivity. These can be summarized as basin type/continuity and structural complexity. The total organic carbon, maturity, mineralogy and thickness of the Bowland Shale and equivalents are broadly similar to the successful US examples. Our conclusion is that the Bowland Shale in the UK does not represent a technically significant resource, and in hindsight did not merit the considerable industry and media attention that has been associated with it. One key learning is that fundamental research based on heritage data and modern analytical and modelling techniques should have preceded drilling and fracking operations in northern England.