Corsham Railway Cutting
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Condition (Natural England)
| Unit | Feature | Condition | Area (ha) | Assessed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST861694 | — | Unfavourable Recovering | 5.25 | 2013-05-22 |
| ST866696 | — | Unfavourable Recovering | 5.25 | 2013-05-22 |
Description
Area, 6.6 ha. 16.4 ac. Description This locality exposes a section through the Bath Oolite and Upper Rags/ Forest Marble. The section is entirely Upper Bathonian in age orbis Zone to hollandi Subzone. Of prime importance at this locality are the coral 'reef knolls' developed in the Corsham Coral Bed at the base of the Upper Rags and the site is the type locality of this bed. The reefs, fringed by inter reef oolitic sediments with off reef depositional dips are both of sedimentological and palaeontological interest. Locally, higher up in the cutting, a clay horizon directly overlying the hardground at the top of the Upper Rags is of interest because it has yielded a number of brachiopods typical of the Upper Bathonian hollandi Subzone Bradfordian fauna. An important site in the interpretation of local stratigraphy and palaeoenvironments in the Bathonian type area.