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Fossil Hunting in Shropshire

Shropshire is the best place in the UK for collecting Silurian and Ordovician fossils. All the sites are inland exposures, so old quarries, cuttings, and outcrops. The fossils that are most commonly found are brachiopods, corals and graptolites. If your lucky, you may find the odd trilobite! There are also some Carboniferous limestone locations. There are also plenty of books on Shropshire that are available from our UKGE site.


Many Silurian fossils such as crinoid pieces, corals and brachiopods can be collected at the National Trust managed limestone escarpment, Wenlock edge. The tourist information centre and museum in Much Wenlock is also worth a visit to learn a little more about the location.


A series of locations along a geological route in Mortimer Forest. Collect a large number of superb corals, brachiopods, bivalves and trilobites from various cuttings All the fossils are in superb condition. An excellent walk too.


So over collected that you have to crawl into the cutting, although it can be hard to get any decent rock samples for splitting, the rewards are worth the hard work. Superb Trilobites and Graptolites in excellent condition, some are complete.


A beautiful location, surrounded by luscious, green rolling countryside; Betton Dingle offers trilobite fossils, a pleasant walk and the guarantee of getting wet. Not a site for the unadventurous!


Another walk along a geological route visiting a two stream sections, two cuttings including an old railway cutting and a quarry. The rocks here are Silurian, Ordovician and Pre-Cambrian. Shells, Graptolites and Trilobites can be found.


A stream section which has been cut back into highly fossiliferious Silurian Rocks. Plenty of excellent corals can be found, brachiopods, bivalves and Trilobites. Most of the fossils have been washed out from their rocks just lying in the stream.


If you fancy a change from all the Shropshire Silurian and Ordovician, you could try this Carboniferous quarry which is now fully open to the public as a nature reserve. Search the scree for Corals, Brachiopods and Bivalves.


Overgrown, but still with lots of fossils to be found. Good exposures of the Wenlock Limestone yield a variety of Corals, Shells and Trilobites. The quarry is quite large with three main sections.


Fossils can be found in shales which outcrop in the stream banks of the Hope Valley stream near the nature reserve. Finds are few and far between but occasionally a nice, whole trilobite may be collected.


A small roadside cutting which yields Brachiopods and Trilobites. The fossils here are poorly preserved in soft mud stones and will require treatment quickly. However its an ideal location to stop off by the road side with a grass layby.


Fossils are common
Fossils often found
Fossils are not common
Fossils rarely found
Site protected, no collecting permitted, or no access to beach

Quaternary
Neogene
Palaeogene

Cretaceous
Jurassic
Triassic
Permian
Carboniferous
Devonian
Silurian
Ordovician
Cambrian / Pre Cambrian

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Fossil Resources

Beginners Guides to Fossil Hunting

Fossils collected direct from cliff face
Fossils collected from the foreshore
Fossils collected from the cliff and foreshore
Location is a quarry or pit
Fossils collected from a stream or river bed,
Fossils collected from a farm field
Fossils collected from road or railway cutting.
Fossils collected from hill or mountain scree slope.
Fossils collected from rock outcrops.
Fossils collected from lake or reservoir banks.
Samples taken back for processing microfossils.
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