The Lincolnshire Limestone Formation is a geological formation in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, part of the

Inferior Oolite Group The Inferior Oolite is a sequence of Jurassic age sedimentary rocks in Europe. It was deposited during the Middle Jurassic.Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Middle Jurassic, Europe)." In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Pet ...

of the (

Bajocian In the geologic timescale, the Bajocian is an age and stage in the Middle Jurassic. It lasted from approximately 170.3 Ma to around 168.3 Ma (million years ago). The Bajocian Age succeeds the Aalenian Age and precedes the Bathonian Age. Stra ...

) Middle

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

strata of eastern

. It was formed around 165 million years ago, in a shallow, warm sea on the margin of the London Platform and has estuarine beds above and below it. The maximum known thickness is 40.2 metres, at around TF9730, while four kilometres further west it is 18.3 metres thick at its outcrop in the upper

Witham Witham () is a town in the county of Essex in the East of England, with a population ( 2011 census) of 25,353. It is part of the District of Braintree and is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands between the city of Che ...

valley. It fades out in the south, around

Kettering Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) of ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

. There are two sub-divisions, the Upper and Lower Lincolnshire Limestone Members respectively. The dividing marker is the 'Crossi' bed which is distinguished by the fossils of ''Acanthothris crossi'' it contains. The Crossi bed forms the top of the Lower Lincolnshire limestone. The bottom of the Lower Lincolnshire limestone has some of the characteristics of the underlying Lower Estuarine Series, in that it tends to contain more than usual amounts of sand. A stone from this part of the formation which was commercially exploited is the

Collyweston stone slate The Collyweston Slater pub in Collyweston with a Collyweston slate roof Collyweston stone slate is a traditional roofing material found in central England. It is not a proper slate but a limestone found in narrow beds. It is considerably h ...

which was used for roofing for several centuries. It is now largely replaced in new work by concrete imitations. Much of the rest of the Lower Lincolnshire limestone is oolitic. It formed in warm, shallow seas where evaporation concentrated the dissolved calcium carbonate and wave action rolled the precipitated material into tiny balls. It takes its name from its similarity to the hard

roe Roe ( ) or hard roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooked in ...

of fish.

References

Bibliography

* Hains, B.A. & Horton, A. ''British Regional Geology Central England 3rd edn. (1969) {{ISBN, 0-11-880088-4 Limestone Stratigraphy of the United Kingdom Geography of Lincolnshire Bajocian Stage Jurassic System of Europe

See also

References

Bibliography