Red Brow Cutting

Site of Special Scientific Interest · 53.3302, -2.6511

Also within

Cheshire County

Condition (Natural England)

Favourable (1)
UnitFeatureConditionArea (ha)Assessed
SJ567816 Favourable 0.17 2021-02-09

Climate exposure

This is about exposure to a nationwide pressure this habitat type carries — not a verdict on this site's own management.

Coastal

Coastal habitats are exposed to sea-level rise and storm erosion. Where hard sea defences sit behind them, there's nowhere landward to retreat to — a squeeze that keeps compressing the habitat no matter how well it's managed.

Geology & landscape

Geological Period: Triassic · Rock Type: Mudstone, Sandstone, Siltstone

Landscape processes: Coastal

Description

Description This lane cutting shows a section of the Tarporley Siltstone Formation Mercia Mudstone Group. These Triassic sediments are mostly fine grained red sandstones and siltstones, with parallel rippled bedding, including flaser and wavy bedding in some of the thicker sandstone units. Trace fossils, including Planolites and Isopodichnus, occur rarely. In some of the sandstone units there are parallel rows of calcite filled geodes which represent replaced nodular gypsiferous evaporites. The section is sedimentologically and environmentally important, as it shows sediments formed in marine intertidal conditions which developed over a wide tract of the central British area in late Scythian–Anisian times.