Lossiemouth East Quarry

Also within

Moray County

Condition (NatureScot)

Habitats

Fast flowing river and stream

Geology & landscape

Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Geological Period: Triassic

Description

Lossiemouth East Quarry This site is found in the east of Lossiemouth, near the mouth of the River Lossie. It is important for its distinctive reptiles of Late Carnian age (around 217 million years old) from the Triassic period. It includes four genera of archosaurs (including a small bipedal dinosaur, Saltopus), a sphenodontid and a procolophonid; four of the genera occur nowhere else. The fauna is unusual in showing close affinities with those of southern continents (India, South America), as well as with those of the rest of western Europe and North America and in that the remains are preserved in aeolian deposits, clearly not the natural habitat of the majority of the animals. In evolutionary terms, many of the genera are unique, or belong to rare groups (e.g. Scleromochlus, Erpetosuchus, Brachyrhindon). Historically, this is one of Britain’s most important sites for vertebrate palaeontology. Its conservation value lies mainly in the richness and uniqueness of the fossil reptile fauna that has been obtained here and, to an extent, in its potential for future finds.

Plant communities