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Day 5: Eathie ‘Cromarty’ is often referred to as the best place for Jurassic ammonites in Scotland, but in actual fact Cromarty is Devonian which we have visited as a separate location. Eathie which is approx 5 miles by road from Cromarty is the location where these ammonites are found. When you drive through Eathie, there is a car park with a board explaining about the fossils along this coast. The footpath down the beach is known as the ‘Hugh Miller Trail’. Hugh Miller was one of the most important Scottish Geologists of the 19th Century. He famously wrote several books based on his ‘geological ramblings’ going into great detail about the geology, sites and finds he made. Eathie was one of those in which he regularly visited. Access to the beach at Eathie is very difficult, but Hugh Miller managed to persuade the farmer to open up a footpath to the shore for collectors All our expeditions to new locations this week have been made by following notes from Hugh Miller’s ‘The Cruise of the Betsey’ and his ‘Rambles of a Geologist’ which for anyone who is interested are available from our UKGE website. The book is thick and although it is written as a continuous novel, contains a full index. This is very handy, if you want to find his notes on a location, a specific fish, just ammonites or any information on geological rocks, minerals or features. Other locations are being found by using 1:50 000 geological maps combined with the BGS Regional Geology Series. The two locations in Fife where taken from a booklet kindly produced by Andrew Macfarlane, just for UKF. The full book contains over 30 locations in and around Fife. Continuing from the car park, we have to warn you that this footpath is still very challenging, it’s a long way to the beach, mostly downhill so when you return, knackered, overloaded with rocks the last thing you need is a long and contentious up-hill climb especially since some of the climb is steep. To make matters worse, during our trip the whole track was very muddy and slippery. At the bottom of the track is the fishing station, this is where the Jurassic beds start, you need to walk South. Most of the beds are covered but the beach is full of rocks to split. During scouring conditions, Kimmeridge shale is exposed on the foreshore. We did managed to find a nice ammonite after splitting a nodule, this split slightly wrong but will be carefully stick with glue later. At present, the nodule is carefully banded together with small clamps until we return to base to properly prepare it. Several other collectors were also present on this beach who had made a couple of nice ammonites simply lying on the foreshore (they beat us to it!) After examining the Jurassic sequence, we walked North past the fishing station towards the Old Red Sandstone. At the headland, exposed on the foreshore and exposed within a small cliff section is Middle Devonian shale, sandstones, siltstones and limestone concretions. The fish are found in these concretions. The nodules split very well and are not that hard. Simply crack the side of the nodule and they split perfectly. Nodules can be found all over the foreshore but only one bed contains the fish. Of course in the time of Hugh Miller, he found many good specimens lying on the beach during the time when other collectors were rare….today with so many collectors and high value for fossil fish the nodules are snapped up as soon as they appear. This is also true at ‘Cromarty’ which we will look at in more detail shortly. Most of the nodules exposed on the foreshore are unfossilferious, but one of the beds where nodules have been clearly removed contained two small nodules. These were split, one had some fish scales and the other was unfossiliferious. About 2 miles further up the coast, these beds are also found but all of the exposures are fairly short. |
