Hobbs Nature Reserve Fossils
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of ancient organisms, such as plants, animals, and microorganisms, that lived in the past. They can include bones, shells, teeth, imprints, and traces like footprints or burrows. Fossils provide valuable insights into past life forms, evolution, and form a fascinating part at Hobbs.
Hobbs Nature Reserve boasts a rich array of marine fossils from the Silurian era, including trilobites, graptolites, conodonts, corals, stromatoporoids, and mollusks. The reserve features a lengthy and slender quarry, tracing a path along exposed, folded, and uplifted Silurian limestone oriented from north to south. Excavations have shaped the landscape into a low, vertical cliff facing east, with a lushly overgrown gully at its base.
Predominantly composed of the Nodular Beds Member of the Wenlock Limestone formation, the rock strata also reveal layers of other limestone, displaying clear stratification. Adjacent sections of the quarry, extending beyond both the nature reserve and the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), form a contiguous trough stretching nearly one mile in length.
For enthusiastic young people searching for fossils, visiting Hobbs can be a stimulating and rewarding experience. Adult Education groups and Geological Societies have found, and will continue to find, it to be an intriguing site. For those studying and researching at university level there is considerable palaeontological and sedimentological detail to investigate in depth.
