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East Kirkton Quarry

Bathgate, Italy

East Kirkton Quarry

East Kirkton Quarry, or simply East Kirkton, is a former limestone quarry in West Lothian, Scotland, now a renowned fossil site. The quarry is known for terrestrial and freshwater animal fossils; the most fossil-rich layer is dated to around 341 ± 3 million years ago, during the Viséan stage of the

Mississippian subperiod (Early Carboniferous Period). The quarry is a 200-meter-long (~650 ft) depression located in the town of Bathgate. Geographically, it sits at the Bathgate Hills near the center of the Midland Valley, a fossil-rich region of southeast Scotland. The site is dominated by volcanic tuff, limestone, and silica deposits of large freshwater lakes associated with hot springs and local basaltic (high-iron) volcanism. Three geological intervals are exposed: the East Kirkton Limestone (oldest), Little Cliff Shale (middle), and Geikie Tuff (youngest). The East Kirkton Limestone in particular has produced numerous well-preserved fossils of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) and arthropods (multi-legged chitinous invertebrates like millipedes and arachnids). East Kirkton had been ignored by paleontologists since the 1840s, but Scottish fossil collector Stan Wood managed to procure...

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