Meeting House Quarry
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Geology & landscape
Geological Feature: Geological Fault · Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Geological Period: Silurian · Rock Type: Mudstone
Description
Description Meeting House Quarry is located on the edge of Coed Swydd Common near the Pales Friends Meeting House, about 1km north of Llandegley. This nationally important site lies on the Pontesford Lineament, a component of the NE-striking Welsh Borderland Fault System, and exposes interbedded homogeneous silty mudstone and laminated carbonaceous mudstone belonging to the early Ludlow (Gorstian Stage) Llanbadarn Formation. Sedimentological, faunal and palaeogeographical evidence from the site suggests that this area occupied a basin slope that was transitional between the shelf enviroment of the Midland Platform that lay beyond the Church Stretton Fault to the south-east and the deeper, axial zone of the turbidite-dominated Montgomery Trough to the north-west. Lithologies record the interplay between background sedimentation and discrete depositional events originating from the shelf, whilst the sparse fauna, including graptolites, brachiopods and autochthonous bivalves, is of palaeoecological importance. The site is also of importance because it provides critical evidence for the first appearance of pioneer pelagic ostracods (myodocopes) in the stratigraphical record. Remarks: The site is described in the Geological Conservation Review volume entitled ‘British Silurian Stratigraphy’ (Aldridge et al., 2000).