East Kirkton Quarry

East Kirkton Quarry is a former limestone quarry in West Lothian, Scotland (East Kirkton Limestone), now better known as a fossil site known for terrestrial fossils from the fossil-poor Romer's gap, a 15 million year period at the beginning of the Carboniferous. The rocks and fossils are of Visean age, about 335 million years old.[1] Best known are the labyrinthodont fossils, as the period coincides with the time where the modern lineages of tetrapods are thought to have evolved.[2]

East Kirkton quarry in 2013

Location

The quarry is located in the town of Bathgate in West Lothian, Scotland. Geologically, it sits fairly central to the middle of the fossil-rich Scottish Central Lowlands. The site is dominated by volcanic tuff and limestone, and layered silica deposits, indicating the presence of a hot spring associated with volcanism.[3]

The land next to the quarry itself is developed for housing.[4]

It is designated as both a Regionally Important Geological Site and as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.[5]

freehand field-sketch of East Kirkton Quarry, August 1983 showing outcrop transects of field work

Fossils

The quarry was first mentioned in 1825,[6] but most active in the 1830s and 1840s.[7][8] During these years it yielded some interesting fossils of Carboniferous plants and eurypterids, though this was not uncommon for quarries in the area.[9] When the quarry closed, the place was for the most part, forgotten, until fossil hunter Stan Wood found fossils of primitive tetrapods there in 1984.[4] The quarry was bought by Wood for fossil collection, and yielded extremely interesting finds, including a huge sample of both terrestrial and marine fossil arthropods, examples of several classes of fishes and early amphibians.[3] The latter include multiple examples of Balanerpeton (a temnospondyl), Silvanerpeton and Eldeceeon (basal anthracosaurs). A single specimen of a small animal named Westlothiana has variously been interpreted as an anthracosaur, a proto-amniote and possibly even the oldest known reptile.[10][11]

The fossil of a small microsaur amphibian even including evidence of soft tissue found in the location was named Kirktonecta by Jennifer A. Clack in honour of the site.[12]

References
  1. East Kirkton, Bathgate (GCR ID: 2757) in Dineley, D. and Metcalf, S. (1999) Fossil Fishes of Great Britain, Geological Conservation Review Series, No. 16, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough, 675 pp. Chapter 15: Sites of British Fossil stem Tetrapoda and Amphibia. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  2. White, T. & Kazlev, M.A. (2004): Paleozoic Sites, part 2 Archived 2010-11-26 at the Wayback Machine, from Palaeos website.
  3. Benton, M. (2005): Vertebrate Palaeontology 3rd edition. Blackwell Publishing
  4. Clack, J.A. (2002): Gaining ground: the origin and evolution of tetrapods. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, USA. 369 pp
  5. "UKRIGS: East Kirkton Quarry". East Kirkton Quarry RIGS/SSSI. UKRIGS. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
  6. Fleming, J (1825). "On the Neptunean Formation of Siliceous Stalactities". Edinburgh Journal of Science. IV: 307–312.
  7. Howell, H.H.; Geikie, A (1861). "The Geology of the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh". Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Scotland.
  8. Hibbert, S (1836). "On the fresh-water limestone of Burdiehouse, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh - Carboniferous". Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 13: 169–280.
  9. Muir, R.D.; Walton, E.K. (1957). "The East Kirkton Limestone". Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow. 22: 157–168. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  10. Smithson, T.R. & Rolfe, W.D.I. (1990): Westlothiana gen. nov. :naming the earliest known reptile. Scottish Journal of Geology no 26, pp 137–138.
  11. Ruta, M.; Coates, M.I. & Quicke, D.L.J. (2003): Early tetrapod relationships revisited. Biological Reviews no 78: pp 251-345.PDF
  12. Clack, Jennifer A. (2011). "A new microsaur from the early Carboniferous (Viséan) of East Kirkton, Scotland, showing soft tissue evidence". Special Papers in Palaeontology. 86: 1–11.

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