So, today a few of us popped over to Victoria Park to visit Glasgow’s Fossil Grove (55° 52′ 36.24″ N, 4° 20′ 17.58″ W according to Wikipedia). Fossil Grove is a group of Lepidodendron tree stump casts dated to the Early Carboniferous, and part of the Lepidodendropsis Floral Province. It’s a reasonably famous site (SSSI in fact), due to the excellent preservation and the fact that this is the only known example where these particular trees can be found in situ.
This is vaguely related to the course we’ve just finished (ES2Q: Palaeobiology with Alan Owen), so we thought we’d pop along to take a look.
And we found this:
Hazel and Emma looking Sad
As Might be Evident from this picture, the place is locked up. It’s almost as if some idiot forgot to check when it was open…
Open Thursday–Monday 10am–4pm, late March–late September
Crap. I’m just not used to rocks having opening times.
In any event, we decided to make the best of things by having a wander around the park itself. Fossil Grove is situated in a Whinstone quarry, meaning that we should at least have some Quartz-Dolerite sills to look at.
The quarry has been turned into a rather attractive rock garden which, despite some graffiti issues, is a lovely little area of the park. We clambered up the side of the sill to have a little nosey at the rocks. We were also able to examine the centre of the sill, where it had been cut through to make a pathway. Here we could see a noticeable difference in grain size; with the slower cooled centre having much larger crystals. None of this really came out with my camera, but here’s a picture of me and Hazel clambering up it.
Checking out the Dolerite Sill
The day wasn’t entirely a waste on the Palaeobiology front however, since Hazel did manage to find some dinosaurs! (In an area of Lower Carboniferous sediments, and Late Carboniferous sills – not exactly the place you’d expect).
Hazel Finds a Dinosaur
Some pictures of Fossil Grove can be found here, and we might try and pop back sometime this week or next week (hopefully on a day when it’s actually open to the public).
Recommended Reading:
More Info From the Geological Society of Glasgow [446kb PDF]
Lawson, J.D. & Weedon, D.S. 1992. Geological Excursions around Glasgow & Girvan. Geological Society of Glasgow.
Tags: Carboniferous, Fossil Grove, Geology, Glasgow