On a drizzly afternoon Abingdon’s nascent Geology department made the short trip to Dry Sandford Pit, an old quarry near Cothill. Our objective was to investigate the nature of the depositional environments operating in the Boreal Jurassic Seaway during two of the subzones of the Oxfordian Stage of the Upper Jurassic. Beds were measured, sediments graded, fossils identified and litres of HCl pipetted onto potential carbonate rocks. In the end, and after much head scratching, a detailed graphic log of the exposure was completed and a full(ish) picture of how conditions changed over this relatively short period of geological time was gained. The day was rounded off with the examination of some spectacular Jurassic solitary corals. A splendid afternoon.
