Coaley Wood Quarries () 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 ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, notified in 1974.Natural England SSSI information on the citation
/ref> The quarries lie within the

Cotswold The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Juras ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site is listed in the ‘Stroud District’ Local Plan, adopted November 2005, Appendix 6 (online for download) as an SSSI and as 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 ...

(RIGS). Stroud District Local Plan, adopted November 2005, Appendix 6 ‘Sites of Nature Conservation Interest’

Geology

The site is abundant with fossils of Lower

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), 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 J ...

age in the stratum called the ''Cephalopod bed''. There are particularly good examples of

ammonites Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) ...

which allow greater accuracy in dating the rocks. The ammonites present indicate that the strata are of early striatulum Subzone age. The sunken lane cuttings provide exposures of the underlying Cotswold Sand Formation and a thin, isolated sandstone layer contains rare ammonites called Haugia.

References

SSSI Source

Natural England SSSI information on the citation

Natural England SSSI information on the Coaley Wood Quarries unit

External links

Natural England
(SSSI information) {{SSSIs Gloucs geological Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Gloucestershire Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1974 Quarries in Gloucestershire Cotswolds