Spittal Quarry

Also within

Caithness County

Condition (NatureScot)

Geology & landscape

Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Geological Period: Devonian

Description

Spittal Quarry Spittal Quarry is an active quarry 15km south of Thurso, Caithness. The site is designated for its fossil fish that date to the Middle Devonian period of geological time, approximately 380 million years ago. Fossils occur throughout the 10m-thick layer of Middle Devonian flagstones at this site. These rocks formed during the Devonian period from sediment washed into Lake Orcadie, a large inland lake that covered the area we now know as Caithness. Quarrying at Spittal has exposed fossils of extinct fish that once inhabited this lake and the remains of which were preserved in the accumulating sediment. This site is one of a network of sites where fossil fish can be found in Caithness and exposes sediments that are younger than those found at Achanarras Quarry. Spittal Quarry is the type locality (first site in the world at which a species was discovered and described) for the plate-skinned fish Dickosteus threiplandi and the jawless fish Trewinia magnifica. The latter species is unique to this site. The fossil fish from Spittal are important because species are found here that are not known from other sites and because of their large size and good quality of preservation.