Betteshanger Park, formerly Fowlmead, preserves a fossil-hunting area in material from the Kent coalfield. Its Carboniferous plant fossils can be explored through the park’s authorised fossil activities. Carboniferous, Spoil, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Where to find fossils and what to find. UK Fossils features hundreds of fossil collecting locations in the UK, with geological guides and fossil hunting events.
Tag: Spoil
Seaham
At Blast Beach, south of Seaham, waves rework old colliery spoil beneath pale Permian cliffs. The shale and sandstone brought up during mining contain Carboniferous plant fossils, including leafy fragments, stems and pieces of larger trunks, making this a distinctive place to explore the area’s coal-mining past. Carboniferous, Spoil, Cliffs, Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Auchinleck Tip
Auchinleck Tip contains mixed Carboniferous mine spoil, historically attributed to the Scottish Middle Coal Measures Formation. Among the hard limestone blocks, shale can yield plant stems and roots, including stems of Calamites. Many pieces are barren or poorly preserved, but the original account records occasional better plant remains. The dumped rocks no longer retain their original bed order. Carboniferious, Spoil Heap, Rating: ♦♦♦
