22nd September 2009By Diarmuid MacDonagh
Fossils more than 150 million years old have been unearthed on the path of the Weymouth Relief Road.
Experts working for road designers Amey, contractor Skanska and Dorset County Council found fossilised insects, plants, sea shells, sea urchins and dinosaur bones while exploring some of the relief road cuttings.
The discoveries were made when geologists and palaeontologists, fossil experts, were able to inspect the relief road cutting from the chalk Ridgeway right through to the south side of Southdown Ridge.
All together the rocks exposed in the cuttings were a slice through almost 100 million years of geological time.
Jurassic Coast Earth Science Manager Richard Edmonds said: “The Purbeck Beds at the Bincombe Hill in particular have been a great success story.
“We found an array of finely preserved insects including caddice flies, lacewings, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, dragonflies, damselflies and true flies – all the sorts of insects you would find around Weymouth today.
“We also found plants with detail of the foliage, which is very rare, and these may have doubled the number of known specimens of plants in Dorset.
“Thanks to the experts involved, tiny teeth from shrew-like mammals and two Icthyosaur bones were also found.”
The relief road team is now working on keeping visible the layers of geology exposed in the Southdown Ridge cutting.
Jurassic Coast Earth Science Manager Richard Edmonds said: “Dorset’s geology is famous and spectacular and the cutting through Southdown Ridge shows what the land of Weymouth is made up of.
“There is Kimmeridge Clay as well as the top part of the Corallian containing layers of limestone, clay and sandstone.
“It is the hard layers of rock within the Corallian that will be left exposed. These include Trigonia limestone, Osmington oolite and Benclif grit nodules.
“These layers all look very different from each other and appear very impressive in the cutting.
“We hope that we can keep these strata clearly exposed so that once the road is open people will be able to see a snap shot of the history of Dorset.”
The fossils have been taken away by the various experts who have had access to the site and will be donated to museums, including Dorset County Museum, once their studies are complete.
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/4641575.Fossil_finds_on_Weymouth_Relief_Road/
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