AUST BONE BED - 210 million years old - Gloucestershire
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Tiny specimen containing fish teeth, scales, bones and coprolites
210 million years old
(Upper Triassic period)
Aust Cliff, Gloucestershire
The Aust Bone Bed is a thin band of fossil-rich sandstone that occurs around Bristol and the Severn Estuary but is particularly well developed at Aust Cliff by the old Severn Bridge, near the village of Aust. It contains numerous well-preserved bones, teeth, scales and coprolites of mostly fish and marine reptiles. Bones of dinosaurs have also been found.
No adequate explanation has been put forward to account for the abundance of vertebrate remains in this bed but one theory is that tumultuous shoreward storms deposited this organic debris across what is now the UK. It is also called the Rhaetic Bone Bed after the Rhaetian stage of the Triassic Period.
(Upper Triassic period)
Aust Cliff, Gloucestershire
The Aust Bone Bed is a thin band of fossil-rich sandstone that occurs around Bristol and the Severn Estuary but is particularly well developed at Aust Cliff by the old Severn Bridge, near the village of Aust. It contains numerous well-preserved bones, teeth, scales and coprolites of mostly fish and marine reptiles. Bones of dinosaurs have also been found.
No adequate explanation has been put forward to account for the abundance of vertebrate remains in this bed but one theory is that tumultuous shoreward storms deposited this organic debris across what is now the UK. It is also called the Rhaetic Bone Bed after the Rhaetian stage of the Triassic Period.
This is a very small specimen, but fascinating when examined under a hand lens. It is presented in a vintage glass museum display box.
Size: approx 4.5 x 3.5 x 1 centimetres
Weight: 22 grams
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