Located 5km north-west of Abingdon, Dry Sandford Pit is a Berks,
Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust Reserve with open access to
the public. From the B4017, turn into Honeybottom Lane. The
entrance and car park for the site is 100m west of the junction
with Church Lane. Further access information, a location map
and leaflet for the site is available from the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire
and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust at:
The old quarry at Dry Sandford
Pit exposes part of a sequence of limestone rocks known
as the Corallian Beds, laid down during the Middle Oxfordian
Stage of the Jurassic, some 140 million years ago. The
original sediments were deposited in shallow coastal waters
close to coral reefs. The layered rock succession seen
here includes parts of three main units of the Corallian;
the Lower Calcareous Grit; the Lower Trigonia Bed of the
Highworth Grit Formation; and the Third Trigonia Bed,
Urchin Marl and Coral Rag of the Osmington Oolite Formation.
These rocks have yielded a diverse array of fossil marine
creatures including brachiopods, ammonites and corals.
The ammonites have been important in enabling the rocks
to be compared and dated with other sequences of similar
age throughout southern Britain.
