Totternhoe Stone Pit is a geological

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 ...

Totternhoe Totternhoe is a village and civil parish in the Manshead hundred of the county of Bedfordshire, England. Overview Totternhoe is an ancient village in southern Bedfordshire, near Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard. Totternhoe Knolls has been a fort ...

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

, England. It is also a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological a ...

site, and the local planning authority is

Central Bedfordshire Council Central Bedfordshire Council is the local authority for the Central Bedfordshire unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It was created from the merger of Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire District Councils ...

. The site displays the base of the

Totternhoe Stone 250 px, The characteristic checkerboard design of many Bedfordshire churches built with alternating chalk and flint blocks: St Mary's (Luton). Totternhoe Stone is a relatively hard chalk outcropping in the middle of the Lower Chalk in the Chilt ...

. It is a lime mud with an extensive deposit of late

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

shark teeth, some of species which have not been fully described, so it will be an important resource for further research. The lower levels contain larger teeth, and in upper ones there are some small

rays Ray may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), a bony or horny spine on a fin Science and mathematics * Ray (geometry), half of a line proceeding from an initial point * Ray (gra ...

. The site is part of the

Totternhoe nature reserve Totternhoe nature reserve is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire (WTBCN). The site is in Totternhoe in Bedfordshire, and it includes parts of three Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). Tott ...

, managed by the

Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire (WTBCN) is a registered charity which manages 126 nature reserves covering . It has over 35,000 members, and 95% of people in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshi ...

, but there is no public access to the Stone Pit.

References

{{coord, 51.890191, -0.576649, type:landmark_region:GB-BNE, display=title Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Bedfordshire Geological Conservation Review sites