Tor Hill 21-08-17
Field Trip to Tor Hill
Led by Jean & Doug
The walk around Tor Hill is only a little over 2 km, and involves an overall ascent of ~ 80m. There are just the two rock units – Carboniferous Limestone and Dolomitic Conglomerate, but there are some interesting points of detail in the area.
Click on the small pictures below to see them full-size.
The Carboniferous rocks form the plunging Tor Hill anticline and we saw the variation in dip of the beds around this fold structure.
The unconformity between the grey Carboniferous Limestone and the red Triassic Dolomitic conglomerate is exposed near the start (Fig. 1). The limestone had been infiltrated by ground water, leaving behind vertical white traces of silica as well as larger, irregularly shaped white nodules (Fig. 2).
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| Fig. 1 | Fig. 2 |
On the top of Tor Hill is a small disused quarry in the Carboniferous Limestone that is very good for finding Productid brachiopods (Figs. 3-5) and Lithostrotion corals (Fig. 6).
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| Fig. 3 | Fig. 4 | Fig. 5 | Fig. 6 |
The exposure of Triassic rocks alongside of the B1319 Dulcote road just below Tor Hill show features (Fig. 7) that might represent early stages of soil formation.
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| Fig. 7 |
[Notes by Doug, pictures by John]
Further information
| Carboniferous limestone | Wikipedia |
| Dolomitic conglomerate | Wikipedia |
| Brachiopods | BGS |
| Lithostrotion coral | Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution |