Fossils and Geology of Portishead, Avon. Fossil Collecting & Geological Guides

Portishead Fossils and Fossil Collecting
Your Avon Geological Guide and Geology Info

Portishead is an interesting location with both Carboniferous and Devonian rocks. At Battery Point, many corals and crinoids can be collected from the rocks on the foreshore, there are plenty to be found. further along Woodhill bay, fish remains are also commonly found.

Portishead - Avon
Last updated: [07/11/04] last visited 2004

Carboniferous
Devonian

Written by Alister and Alison Cruickshanks

(Portishead Foreshore with corals and crinoids exposed) - 2004

Location Information

Corals and Crinoids are plentiful along the foreshore at Battery Point. Fish remains are more harder to find at Woodhill Bay, but scales can normally be found by splitting the right rocks.

(Children only at Battery Point)

Battery Point foreshore is suitable for children, although they must keep away from the salt marsh and boggy areas. Children and families can find fossils by simply looking through the small rocks along the foreshore near the point. More experienced collectors can walk South West along Woodhill Bay to find fish remains.

This location is easy to find, parking can be found at the public swimming pool, with easy access down to the foreshore, just yards from the car park. the fish remains involve a fairly easy walk around the bay.

Foreshore, Cliff

The corals and crinoids are mostly found on the rocks around the foreshore at Battery Point, although they can also be found in the cliff section. Around Woodhill Bay, fish remains can be found by splitting rocks at the base of the cliff.

Please follow our national fossil collecting code

Other Similar Locations

Portishead is an excellent location for corals, other similar locations for Carboniferous Corals are;Parkhouse Hill, Weston-Super-Mare in Avon. Mortimer Forest, Shadwell Quarry, Upper Millichope , Llanymynech Quarry, and Wenlock Quarry, Wenlock Edge in the Shropshire District and Castleton in the Derbyshire district.. Along the South West Coast, you can also collect Devonian Corals from Torquay along Hopes Nose and Daddy Hole. In South West Wales, you can also find Silurian Corals from Freshwater East, Marloes Sands. In Scotland, you can also find corals at St Monans. From South Wales, Carboniferous Corals can be found at Lydstep Headland, West Angle Bay and Manorbier Bay.

For Corals from Younger period, the Coralline Crag at Ramsholt makes ideal collecting.

For Devonian fish remains, you can try Achanarras, Spittal and Thurso in the north East of Scotland, fish fragments are plentiful, and complete finds can also be made. Fish can also be found at Cromarty, Tarbat Ness, John o' Groats, Queensferry, North Berwick and Eathie

! IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTES !

The sea often reaches the base of the two small cliffs at high tide, you should ensure you check tide times. Near the fish beds there is a long stretch of high seawall with no access, be sure to return in good time.

The salt marsh's and mud plains can be dangerous, stick to the edge of the bay by walking round alongside the seaward side of the seawall.

Some of the cliffs are very high and often crumble, take care and avoid searching where cliffs are overhanging or appear unstable.

Stone Tumblers (Lapidary)

Microscopes

Test Sieves for Particle Analysis

Stone Tumblers are used for tumbling and polishing rough rock, stones and pebbles including those found on the beach and glass.

Whilst collecting fossils, on those days where you come back empty handed, you could collect rocks, stones and glass from the beach and tumble then at home.

These are all high quality machines to give a professional finish to your samples. The tumblers can be used with a variety of grits, most commonly Silicon Carbide Grit and Cerium Oxide. We have a wide range of rough rocks for sale too.

Microfossils are much easier to collect because they are so small that the vast majority of collections only concentrate on large finds. These small finds can simply be found by taking small samples of sands, crags, clays and soft rocks and examining them under a microscope.

We have a wide range of microscopes for sale, both for the study of fossils, but also educational and professional for use in the laboratory. We have Stereo microscopes, Compound Microscopes, Polarising Microscopes and Monocular Microscopes.

We have thousands of Test Sieves for Particle Analysis.

Endecotts Sieves: For accurate dependable results you can't buy a better test sieve than Endecotts. At every stage of manufacture each test sieve is individually inspected.

High Precision Tecan manufactures precision apertures as small as 3 microns for a wide array of applications such as filtering, sieving and nozzles. Its high-performance, ASTM/ISO compliant test sieves satisfy the most demanding fine particle grading requirements.

Portishead Fossils and Fossil Collecting Your Avon Geological Guide and Geology Info

Portishead Fossils and Fossil Collecting
Your Avon Geological Guide and Geology Info