What is the geological location significance of Kimmeridge Clay?
The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for North Sea oil.
How was Kimmeridge Clay formed?
Offshore: In the Southern North Sea, the upper boundary of the Kimmeridge Clay Formation is often truncated by erosion. In some areas sandstone (Spilsby Sandstone Formation, Offshore) overlies the organic-rich mudstones of the Kimmeridge Clay Formation (Offshore).
Can you find fossils at Kimmeridge?
The Kimmeridge Clay contains a remarkable range of fossils including occasional bones of dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pterosaurs and many invertebrate fossils. It is an important formation from a palaeontological point of view and the cliffs here have been yielding remarkable finds for almost two centuries.
What landform is Kimmeridge Bay?
The landforms found here are steep cliffs and a well-defined wave-cut platform. The Kimmeridge Clays are made up of clearly defined beds of shales and limestones. These make a striking pattern on the foreshore at low-tide.
How old is the Kimmeridge Clay?
Dorset, England The village of Kimmeridge stands on Jurassic shale cliffs, and gives its name to the Kimmeridgian, the division of the Jurassic period in which the beds were laid down. Laid down 155 million years ago, the rocks at Kimmeridge Bay were once the floor of a deep, tropical sea rich in pre-historic life.
How old are the fossils at Kimmeridge Bay?
The Kimmeridge Clay (Formation) is composed of fossil-rich mudstones and oil shales which originally accumulated as soft sediment at the bottom of the sea approximately 156-148 million years ago.
Can you find fossils in clay?
Clay is king for creating ancient fossils. The researchers discovered that such traces of early life were encased in halos of the clay known as kaolinite. The presence of kaolinite suppressed the decay of the cells of these organisms — which include bacteria, fungi, and algae — enabling their fossilization.
Is Kimmeridge Bay a concordant coastline?
Kimmeridge Bay ( /ˈkɪmərɪdʒ/) is a bay on the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula on the English Channel coast in Dorset, England, close to and southeast of the village of Kimmeridge, on the Smedmore Estate….
| Kimmeridge Bay | |
|---|---|
| Police | Dorset |
| Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| UK Parliament | South Dorset |
Is Kimmeridge Bay Safe?
About Kimmeridge Bay Kimmeridge Bay, on Dorset’s Jurassic World Heritage Coast, is famous for its safe swimming, rock pooling, canoeing, wind surfing and water sports. The water visibility is excellent for snorkellers and divers.
Is Kimmeridge Bay good for fossils?
Kimmeridge Bay and the adjacent cliffs and foreshore are rich in ammonites, reptiles and shells, but the best collecting sites to the east are a long walk if you are planning to look for fossils along the coastline from Kimmeridge Bay to Chapman’s Pool.
What fossils are found in clay?
Fossils inside shale often include brachiopods, fossilized plants, algae, crustaceans and arthropods trapped in the hardened mud. The very small mud and clay particles allow small details of organisms to be preserved, like the rare fossils of soft-bodied organisms found in the Burgess Shale.
What does rock stratigraphy tell about geologic time?
Over the past 150 years detailed studies of rocks throughout the world based on stratigraphic correlation have allowed geologists to correlate rock units and break them into time units. The result is the geologic column (on next page), which breaks relative geologic time into units of known relative age.
What kind of rock is Kimmeridge Clay made of?
Kimmeridge Clay. Jump to navigation Jump to search. The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for North Sea oil.
Why is Kimmeridge Clay important in the North Sea?
Kimmeridge Clay is of great economic importance, being the major source rock for oil fields in the North Sea hydrocarbon province. It has distinctive physical properties and log responses. A Kimmeridge Oil Shale Project (KOSP) has been pursued by the UK based oil and shale gas exploration company Cuadrilla Resources.
What kind of rocks are found in Kimmeridge Bay?
Kimmeridge Bay is the type locality for the Jurassic age Kimmeridge Clay formation, and provides one of the source rocks for hydrocarbons found in the Wessex and North Sea Basins.
What kind of animals live in the Kimmeridge Clay?
This rock formation is the major source rock for North Sea oil. The fossil fauna of the Kimmeridge Clay includes turtles, crocodiles, sauropods, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs, as well as a number of invertebrate species.