ammonites
Shotover Hill, Portland (Jurassic of the United Kingdom)

Also known as E

Where: England, United Kingdom (51.7° N, 1.2° W: paleocoordinates 42.5° N, 8.6° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Portland Formation, Tithonian (150.8 - 145.5 Ma)

• "The Portland sands, with included rock-bands and hard nodules, rich in shells, 70 or 80 feet."

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: marine; lithified, ferruginous, glauconitic, nodular, green sandstone

• "In the ascent of Shotover Hill the Portland rock is mainly represented by sands of a glauconitic character, enclosing hard spheroidal masses in a slight degree calcareous, and mostly very full of shells. They lie in two bands, as well as can now be seen, or rather as formerly could be seen, for many are destroyed. The masses are as much as five feet across and three feet deep. The shells are much intermingled, but offer no special marks of drifting; some bivalves have the parts in due place; wood occurs with them penetrated by xylophaga; there are occasionally bones, one reptile having the cranial and jaw-bones in connection, with cervical vertebrae adjacent."

•"The uppermost part is greensand ; and small grains of silicate of iron are scattered through the whole of the rock. There is an included bed of clay, three feet thick."

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: J. Phillips. 1871. Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the Thames. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1-523 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano] more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 100654: authorized by Matt Carrano, entered by Hallie Street on 11.12.2010