Kings Dyke fossils and fossil collecting

Geological Tools

TOOLS: A pick and knife are very handy when looking in the clay, mostly though all you really need is a good eye, fossils are mostly found either scattered on the surface or poking out of embankments and dykes. CONTAINERS: Fossils from Kings Dyke can be placed into small containers, any fragile fossils such as shells should be separated and wrapped.

Other Locations similar to Kings Dyke

Other locations where fossils can be found in the Oxford Clay are, Grafham Water and Yaxley in the Cambridgeshire region, or in Dorset, try Weymouth, Bowleaze Cove. In North Scotland you can also try Brora which also has Oxford Clay. In Yorkshire, you can try Cayton Bay. Gristhorpe.

Both the working pit and disused 'special fossil hunting area' contains fossilferious Oxford Clay. This is extremely rich in fossils. The most common find is Gryphaeas, both the small Bilobissa dilobotes and the giant variety. Belemnites are also plentiful, including the most common large Hibolithes hastatus and the torpedo type, Hibolithes hastatus. You are also likely to find worm tubes, crinoids and ammonites.

Reptile remains are surprisingly quite common here, Ichthyosaur and Pliosaurs being fairly common. Crocodile remains (Croxodile Steneosauraus) and shark teeth also turn up from time to time. Complete skeletons have been found in the past at the working site.

The best area to search is the slopes were the fossils have been washed out of the clay, the best time to visit is after heavy rainfall when the rain washes fossils down the slopes.

If you can visit the working pit with a geologial society such as the Stamford and District Geological Group, you will have a much higher chance of finding fossils and much better specimens.

Peterborough is famous for brick making, and at one time had clay pits all around the city. Today only a few remain open, and one of them is this famous pit, 'Kings Dyke Pit'. The remaining pits have now closed and have naturally filled with water. Most of these have been turned into nature reserves, or walkways. Some are currently being filled in, with new housing estates currently being built or have been built.

It is the Oxford Clay that makes an excellent material for bricks. This clay also happens to be extremly rich in fossils. The Oxford Clay has been reclassified and now falls under the Peterborough Formation. It is Mainly brownish-grey, fissile, organic-rich (bituminous) mudstones with shelly fauna dominated by crushed aragonitic ammonites and bivalves, including nuculoid and meleagrinella shell-beds. Subordinate beds of pale-medium grey, blocky mudstone exist with several bands of cementstone nodules/concretions. The basal beds are commonly silty, with Gryphaea-rich shell beds...[more]