Stanton St. Quintin Quarry and Motorway Cutting

Site of Special Scientific Interest · 51.5150, -2.1201

Also within

Wiltshire County

Condition (Natural England)

Favourable (2)
UnitFeatureConditionArea (ha)Assessed
ST917795 Favourable 2.3 2024-02-07
ST920805 Favourable 0.24 2023-03-23

Geology & landscape

Geological Feature: Rock Outcrop · Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Geological Period: Jurassic

Description

Description These two localities expose a continuous composite section from the top of the Middle Jurassic Forest Marble Upper Bathonian up to the base of the Kellaways Beds Lower Callovian. They therefore provide one of the country's few complete exposures of the Cornbrash, a formation developed along most of the length of the English Jurassic outcrop. These sections have yielded ammonites of biostratigraphic importance Clydoniceras, Macrocephalites. They display a thick development of the Lower Cornbrash, while the motorway cutting section shows that the 'Upper Cornbrash' of the region is actually developed in Kellaways Beds facies. The Lower Cornbrash of both cutting and quarry is notably fossiliferous, yielding characteristic fossils, as well as more localised species such as Ornithella foxleyensis.