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Site 7 - Bath Oolite/Upper Rags/Forest Marble

Walk back up to the path near the bottom of the steps from the Folly and turn left. Walk along this path for about 70m until you can see a rock face in the cliff on your right. (GPS N 51o23.627' W 002o17.820') The rocks here are those seen previously at Site 5 but are more accessible for examination.

Identify the Roof Bed and the Bath Oolite below and the white oolite and hard honeycomb weathered bed above.
Are there oyster shells on the top of the Roof bed?
Examine carefully the oolite above the Roof Bed. It contains clear burrow structures. Compare it with the Bath Oolite below.
There is a large scree at the base of the rock face and some of the material contains whole fossils. See if you can select from the scree a sample of each of the rocks you have seen so far.

A track up the left hand side of the site enables the highest beds of the Upper Rags and their junction with the Forest Marble to be seen. Just below this junction there is a conspicuous brown clayey band from which fossils characteristic of the Bradford Clay can be obtained.

(Mell Freeman)

Around the entrance to this site are a number of large blocks of Roof Bed and a few of oolite. Try to pick out those Roof Bed blocks that are the right way up, i.e. as deposited. The oolite blocks can be distinguished from the Roof Bed ones by the different way they have weathered.
Remembering that the oolite is the softer rock, see if you can pick them out.



Site 7 (Mell Freeman)


Roof Bed with white oolite above


Bath Geological Society members clearing Site 7