North Road Quarry, Bath
Also within
Condition (Natural England)
| Unit | Feature | Condition | Area (ha) | Assessed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST767645 | — | Unfavourable Declining | 0.28 | 2012-12-06 |
Geology & landscape
Geological Period: Quaternary · Rock Type: Chert, Conglomerate, Flint, Limestone, Sandstone
Landscape processes: Fluvial, Glacial
Description
Area, 0.3 ha. 0.74 ac. Description The exposure contains two features of special interest. The site contains an exposure of Oolite, which at this point is cambered towards Smallcombe Vale, a tributary of the Avon Valley. The section shows a very clear example of dip and fault structure, where joint bounded blacks of Oolite have individually tilted downslope at an angle from the horizontal greater than that of the slope surface itself. Thus contacts between adjacent blocks appear as normal faults heading upslope, with a small apparent downthrow on the upslope side. Also of special interest at this site are the Pleistocene 'plateau gravels' made up of flint, chert, limestone, coal, shales, sandstone and conglomerate, sometimes in a silty matrix, sometimes clast supported. These are preserved here in solution cavities and fissures in the great Oolite limestones. The deposits are of great antiquity and both fluvial and glacial origins have been postulated for them by past workers. This is the best exposure of plateau deposits in the Bath area and as such is of considerable importance for the understanding of the Pleistocene sequence in the Avon Valley.