Shipton-on-Cherwell & Whitehill Farm Quarries

Also within

Oxfordshire County

Condition (Natural England)

Geology & landscape

Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Geological Period: Jurassic · Rock Type: Limestone, Marble

Description

Area, 27.65 hectares 68.3 ac Description The Shipton on Cherwell Quarry currently exposes a section from near the base of the White Limestone including the type section of the Shipton Member up to the Lower Cornbrash; it is one of the most important sections in Oxfordshire for displaying the typical local Mid to Upper Bathonian lithostratigraphic succession. The highly fossiliferous Shipton Member of the White Limestone is well displayed at Whitehill Farm Quarry. This quarry in addition displays large scale cross bedding in the overlying Ardley Member not seen at Shipton, formed by storm moved shelly oolite shoals in a 'lagoonal' setting. These two localities illustrate the considerable variation in facies within the White Limestone locally and they have been critical in palaeoecological, sedimentological and general facies studies of the White Limestone of central and eastern England. Shipton may be regarded as the type section of the laterally extensive Forest Marble and is undoubtedly the best location in the country for examining the rapid lateral facies changes seen within this formation; elsewhere the complex inter relationship between oolitic/bioclastic sand shoals and inter shoal, slack water muds which characterises the Forest Marble of the area is inadequately displayed. Some of the Forest Marble at Shipton contain stransported elements of the diverse 'Bradfordian' fauna but much of it is unfossiliferous, although the trace fossil Gyrochorte occurs frequently. The Forest Marble here has been the subject of exhaustive sedimentological study. The fossiliferous Lower Cornbrash, thickly developed at Shipton, is characteristic of the Lower Cornbrash of much of Oxfordshire. The northern corner of Shipton on Cherwell Quarry has been well known for its fossil reptiles since 1820. It has yielded fine cranial remains of 5 or more long snouted crocodiles Steneosaurus, Teleosaurus including type material of two species, from the fimbriatus waltoni beds and other units near the top of the White Limestone Formation. The type specimen of the dinosaur Dacentrurus vetustus from the Lower Cornbrash here is one of the earliest Stegosaurs known. Shipton on Cherwell Quarry has yielded the best extant collection of Middle Jurassic crocodiles in the world. It is of international importance as one of the best Upper Bathonian reptile sites known.