Lime Craig Quarry

Also within

Stirling and Falkirk County LochLomond National Park National Park

Condition (NatureScot)

Geology & landscape

Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Rock Type: Limestone

Description

LIME CRAIG QUARRY Lime Craig Quarry Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI) is located 1.5 km north east of Aberfoyle. It has a fossilised marine fauna which is unique in Britain. The site is internationally important for dating and helping to understand the Highland Border Complex rocks, and allowing these rocks to be correlated with those of other areas of the British Isles and the world. The exposures of the Dounans Limestone (Highland Border Complex) at this site have yielded an important fauna of mid-Arenig age. The diverse silicified fauna contains thirteen trilobite species, brachiopods, ostracods, primitive echinoderm remains (pelmatozoan ossicles), gastropods and various small fossils of unknown affinity. The fauna contains trilobite taxa similar to those found in Spitsbergen and North America and facilitates, for the first time, a correlation of these rocks with strata elsewhere, roughly equivalent to Zone H of the Cassinian Stage of the “Canadian” Series of North America. The site is thus of great importance in the dating of the highly disrupted Highland Border Complex, whose rocks represent the remnants of a major ocean basin, with faunal affinities lying more with the North American faunal province than with other regions of Britain.