Meadowtown Quarry

Site of Special Scientific Interest · 52.6039, -3.0188

Condition (Natural England)

Unfavourable Recovering (1)
UnitFeatureConditionArea (ha)Assessed
SJ311011 Unfavourable Recovering 0.12 2012-02-15

Geology & landscape

Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Geological Period: Ordovician

Landscape processes: Volcanic / Igneous

Description

Description This long disused quarry provides the best known exposure of the Meadowtown Member in the hamlet of Meadowtown. The Meadowtown Member makes up part of the Llandeilo Series of the Ordovician and in this quarry 9.75 metres of shales, flags and limestones with occasional tuff horizons have been recorded. Meadowtown Quarry is also a well known fossil collecting locality and has yielded typical and distinctive trilobites including Oxygiocarella debuchii, Marrolithus craticulatus, Lloydolithus lloydii and Oxyginus cordensis novenarius. Species of the brachiopod genus Dalmanella and occasional sponge spicules also occur. Graptolites are uncommon here but the quarry is the type locality for the species Diplograptus foliaceus, a species typical of the Glyptograptus teretiusculus zone of the lower Llandeilo.