Tag: Limestone

Shelly Limestone

fossils

Jurassic fossil shells in the limestone of High Oaks Grange holiday cottages near Pickering.

fossils

The Beech Farm Brachiopods

fossil shells

The oolitic limestone of the North York Moors was laid down in a warm tropical sea about 160 million years ago in the Jurassic Period. In close-up, oolite resembles tiny round white fish eggs, hence the name.

The spiral shells are, as you might suspect, molluscs, but the thick mussel-shaped shells are brachiopods, also known as lamp shells because of their resemblance to Roman oil lamps.

View from Beech Farm Cottages
View from Beech Farm Cottages

I spotted them in the walls of Beech Farm Cottages, Wrelton.

shells in oolite
Calcite crystals have replaced the original material in this fossil mollusc shell.
Shelly limestone: these brachiopod shells are mostly aligned concave side upwards, probably because of a current sorting the sediment and depositing them on this part of the seabed. Because this block has been built into a wall, we can’t tell which way up it was when the shells were deposited.
Entrance to Beech Farm Cottages. These corners stones or quoins are traditionally made from sandstone in the North York Moors because limestone isn’t as suitable for cutting to a sharp edge. In the absence of suitable slate or flagstones, pantiles became the preferred material for roofs. The stone bracket at the corner of the roof is a kneeler.

Merlin and the Kumquat

MUCH OF the bedrock that I’ve seen in rocks on the shore or in roadside cuttings is like this; it’s full of fragments of limestone, strongly bound in a cement of pulverised and powdered rock.

The 1 to 2 millimetre deep indentations on this pebble (right) are in rows too regular, I think, to be part of any geological erosion process. But I can’t imagine why any marine creature would go to the trouble of pitting out patterns in this way so my guess is that it is some kind of a fossil.

I’m not sure what species this large thistle was but it looked different to our Spear and Creeping Thistles.

Kumquat

The Kumquat was introduced to Corfu by an English botanist called Merlin. The fruits are turned into marmalade and also distilled to make a fruity liqueur. A Merlin variety of orange is still grown on the island.

This Spotted Flycatcher was perching on aerial, veranda and wire, darting off and hovering below the balcony of an empty villa.

This White Wagtail is the same species as our British Pied Wagtail but a different race. The continental male has a grey back, as shown in my sketch, while our Pied has a black back. The continental variety is Moticilla abla alba and the British race Moticilla abla yarellii.