East Kirkton Quarry in West Lothian in Scotland 1

East Kirkton Quarry is a former

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

quarry in

West Lothian West Lothian ( sco, Wast Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Iar) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and was one of its shires of Scotland, historic counties. The county was called Linlithgowshire until 1925. The historic county was bounded geogra ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

(

East Kirkton Limestone The East Kirkton Limestone is a rock unit in the West Lothian Oil-Shale Formation in Scotland. It preserves fossils of the Carboniferous period. The limestone outcrops at East Kirkton Quarry. See also * '' Kirktonecta'' * List of fossiliferou ...

), now better known as a fossil site known for terrestrial fossils from the

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

-poor

Romer's gap Romer's gap is an example of an apparent gap in the tetrapod fossil record used in the study of evolutionary biology. Such gaps represent periods from which excavators have not yet found relevant fossils. Romer's gap is named after paleontologist ...

, a 15 million year period at the beginning of the

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...

. The rocks and fossils are of Visean age, about 335 million years old. Best known are the

labyrinthodont "Labyrinthodontia" (Greek, 'maze-toothed') is an informal grouping of extinct predatory amphibians which were major components of ecosystems in the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras (about 390 to 150 million years ago). Traditionally consid ...

fossils, as the period coincides with the time where the modern lineages of

tetrapod Tetrapods (; ) are four-limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids ( reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids (pelycosaurs, extinct theraps ...

s are thought to have evolved.

Location

The quarry is located in the town of

Bathgate Bathgate ( sco, Bathket or , gd, Both Chèit) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, west of Livingston and adjacent to the M8 motorway. Nearby towns are Armadale, Blackburn, Linlithgow, Livingston, West Calder and Whitburn. Situated sout ...

. Geologically, it sits fairly central to the middle of the fossil-rich Scottish

Central Lowlands The Central Lowlands, sometimes called the Midland Valley or Central Valley, is a geologically defined area of relatively low-lying land in southern Scotland. It consists of a rift valley between the Highland Boundary Fault to the north and t ...

. The site is dominated by volcanic

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...

and limestone, and layered

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...

deposits, indicating the presence of a

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

associated with

volcanism Volcanism, vulcanism or volcanicity is the phenomenon of eruption of molten rock (magma) onto the surface of the Earth or a solid-surface planet or moon, where lava, pyroclastics, and volcanic gases erupt through a break in the surface called ...

. Benton, M. (2005):

Vertebrate Palaeontology Vertebrate paleontology is the subfield of paleontology that seeks to discover, through the study of fossilized remains, the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord. It also tries to connect, by u ...

3rd edition. Blackwell Publishing The land next to the quarry itself is developed for housing. Clack, J.A. (2002): Gaining ground: the origin and evolution of tetrapods. ''Indiana University Press'', Bloomington, Indiana, USA. 369 pp It is designated as both a

Regionally Important Geological Site Regionally important geological and geomorphological sites (RIGS) (also known as regionally important geological sites or, especially in Wales, regionally important geodiversity sites) are locally designated sites of local, national and regional imp ...

and as a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

Fossils

The quarry was first mentioned in 1825, but most active in the 1830s and 1840s. During these years it yielded some interesting fossils of Carboniferous plants and

eurypterids Eurypterids, often informally called sea scorpions, are a group of extinct arthropods that form the order Eurypterida. The earliest known eurypterids date to the Darriwilian stage of the Ordovician period 467.3 million years ago. The group is l ...

, though this was not uncommon for quarries in the area. When the quarry closed, the place was for the most part, forgotten, until fossil hunter

Stan Wood Stanley Wood (23 July 1905 – 17 February 1967) was an English footballer who played as an outside left. During his professional career he represented West Bromwich Albion and Halifax Town. Career Wood was born in Winsford, Cheshire and att ...

found fossils of primitive

s there in 1984. The quarry was bought by Wood for fossil collection, and yielded extremely interesting finds, including a huge sample of both terrestrial and marine fossil

arthropods Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

, examples of several classes of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

es and early

amphibians Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...

. The latter include multiple examples of ''

Balanerpeton ''Balanerpeton'' is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian from the Visean stage of the Early Carboniferous period. It is estimated to reach up to in length. ''Balanerpeton woodi'' was discovered by Stanley Wood and is the earliest and most ...

'' (a

temnospondyl Temnospondyli (from Greek language, Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') is a diverse order (biology), order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered Labyrinthodontia, primitive amphi ...

), ''

Silvanerpeton ''Silvanerpeton'' is an extinct genus of early reptiliomorph found in East Kirkton Quarry of West Lothian, Scotland, in a sequence from the Brigantian substage of the Viséan (Lower Carboniferous). The find is important, as the quarry represents ...

'' and ''

Eldeceeon ''Eldeceeon'' is an extinct genus of reptiliomorph from the Mississippian (early Carboniferous) of Scotland. It is known from two fossil specimens found within the Viséan-age East Kirkton Quarry in West Lothian. The type and only species, '' ...

'' (basal

anthracosaur Anthracosauria is an order of extinct reptile-like amphibians (in the broad sense) that flourished during the Carboniferous and early Permian periods, although precisely which species are included depends on one's definition of the taxon. "Ant ...

s). A single specimen of a small animal named ''

Westlothiana ''Westlothiana'' ("animal from West Lothian") is a genus of reptile-like tetrapod that lived about 338 million years ago during the latest part of the Visean age of the Carboniferous. Members of the genus bore a superficial resemblance to modern ...

'' has variously been interpreted as an anthracosaur, a proto-

amniote Amniotes are a clade of tetrapod vertebrates that comprises sauropsids (including all reptiles and birds, and extinct parareptiles and non-avian dinosaurs) and synapsids (including pelycosaurs and therapsids such as mammals). They are disti ...

and possibly even the oldest known

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

.Ruta, M.; Coates, M.I. & Quicke, D.L.J. (2003): Early tetrapod relationships revisited. ''Biological Reviews'' no 78: pp 251-34
PDF
/ref> The fossil of a small microsaur amphibian even including evidence of soft tissue found in the location was named '' Kirktonecta'' by

Jennifer A. Clack Jennifer Alice Clack, (''née'' Agnew; 3 November 1947 – 26 March 2020) was an English palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist. She specialised in the early evolution of tetrapods, specifically studying the "fish to tetrapod" transition: ...

in honour of the site.

References

{{coord, 55.903975, N, 3.616536, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Geology of Scotland Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Edinburgh and West Lothian Carboniferous Scotland Viséan