Ewenny And Pant Quarries
Also within
Climate exposure
This is about exposure to a nationwide pressure this habitat type carries — not a verdict on this site's own management.
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: Carboniferous, Jurassic, Triassic · Rock Type: Carboniferous Limestone, Limestone
Landscape processes: Coastal
Description
Description These two quarries are located in the vicinity of Old Castle Down, approximately 4 km to the south of the centre of Bridgend and 3 km from the coast at Southerndown. They are of special interest for their fossils which are vital to the study of the evolution of mammals. The quarries show vertebrate-bearing late Triassic-early Jurassic fillings in fissures in the Carboniferous Limestone. This is where most of the fossils used in the study of the earliest mammals have been found. Morganucodon watsoni, Kuehneotherium praecursoris and Kuhneon duchyense have been described from the fissures. The first is the earliest and most primitive prototherian, and the second the most primitive therian mammal known.