Godminster Lane Quarry and Railway Cutting () is a 0.8

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre 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 ...

Pitcombe Pitcombe is a village and civil parish south-west of Bruton and from Wincanton in Somerset, England. It has a population of 532. The parish includes the hamlets of Cole and Godminster. The village lies on the River Pitt and other streams that f ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, notified in 1971. This is an important locality for study of the Inferior

Oolite Oolite or oölite (''egg stone'') is a sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers. The name derives from the Ancient Greek word for egg (ᾠόν). Strictly, oolites consist of ooids of diameter 0.25–2 ...

limestones 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 when th ...

, of

Middle Jurassic The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare, but geological formations co ...

age, laid down in a warm shallow sea some 175 million years ago. The site is unique in that the limestones seen here are much more closely comparable with rocks of similar age found in the

Cotswolds 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 Jur ...

than with rock sequences seen elsewhere in Somerset. However, the rocks do contain the rich assemblage of

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 ...

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 are typical of the north

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

/south Somerset area and it is this feature, combined with the unusual limestone sequence, which makes this site unique. It is also important as a reference site for three sub-divisions (zones) of the Inferior Oolite — the laeviscula, discites and concavum Zones.

References

English Nature citation sheet for the site
(accessed 10 August 2006)

External links

English Nature website
(SSSI information) {{SSSIs Somerset geological Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1971 Railway cuttings in the United Kingdom Rail transport in Somerset Quarries in Somerset Geology of Somerset

See also

References

External links