Wootton Bassett Mud Springs (3) - geograph

Wootton Bassett Mud Spring () is an

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 ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England, notified in 1997. It can be found following a ten-minute walk from the canal car park opposite Templars Way, along the Wilts & Berks Canal cut and then south across agricultural land. The mud springs at Wootton Bassett are oozing springs of cold, grey mud that blister up under a thin layer of vegetation from

Ampthill Clay The Ampthill Clay is a Mesozoic geologic formation in southern England. Dinosaur remains diagnostic to the genus level are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.Weishampel, et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution." Pp. 517- ...

. The water emerging in the mud comes from an aquifer in the

Coral Rag Formation The Coralline Oolite Formation is a limestone formation of Oxfordian ( Upper Jurassic) age, found in the Cleveland Basin of North Yorkshire, England. Coral Rag Member The rock forms some of the hills around Oxford Oxford () is a city in ...

beneath the clay and brings to the surface iridescent fossils originating in the mid to late Oxfordian age of the Late Jurassic. The fossils, sometimes with aragonite covering, include

foraminifera Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular Ectoplasm (cell biology), ectoplasm for catching food and ot ...

and

ostracoda Ostracods, or ostracodes, are a class of the Crustacea (class Ostracoda), sometimes known as seed shrimp. Some 70,000 species (only 13,000 of which are extant) have been identified, grouped into several orders. They are small crustaceans, typical ...

and are exceptionally well preserved. Also found are many specimens of

otoliths An otolith ( grc-gre, ὠτο-, ' ear + , ', a stone), also called statoconium or otoconium or statolith, is a calcium carbonate structure in the saccule or utricle of the inner ear, specifically in the vestibular system of vertebrates. The sa ...

, dominated by forms identified as ''Otolithus'' (''Leptolepididarum''). The flow is generally a slow ooze; however, in 1974 workers clearing the nearby stream, Hancock's Water, described a jet of mud rising into the air. In 1990 an attempt was made to fill in the most active spring by putting of rubble into it. This displaced mud, which ran into Hancock's Water, but the rubble could no longer be seen. In June 1996, the British Microbiological Biodiversity Association (BMBA) sent a team of microbiologists to monitor and sample the springs. They discovered that the springs are more than deep and in diameter. They emit a steady flow of fluidised mud at a rate of several cubic metres per day. The BMBA scientists were interested in the anaerobic microbiology of the mud flow and the possible links between this source and the deep terrestrial biosphere. They discovered that within the area there are five main sites of mud-spring activity, one of which can be subdivided into three separate mud springs. They also measured the temperature, pH and conductivity of the fluid within the springs.

References

External links

Wootton Bassett Mud Spring
A more detailed description
YouTube video showing the flow of mud
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