Continental trace fossils and museum exhibits - Geological Curators ...

Naturalists’ Field Club (e.g., Radley 2003; Radleyand Barker 2001). Additionally, Late Triassic–EarlyJurassic trace fossil specimens held by theWarwickshire Museum have featured in recentundergraduate projects at The University ofBirmingham.Figure 6. Two Triassic sandstone slabs preserving reptiletracks on display at the Market Hall Museum, Warwick,2005. The smaller specimen, preserving a Chirotheriumfootcast (Warwickshire Museum specimen G1156), isfrom Lymm, Cheshire. Below, the rippled sandstone slab(Warwickshire Museum specimen G1145) preservesdeformed rhynchosauroid tracks and is from Shrewley,Warwickshire.Trace fossils and the publicInvertebrate trace fossils enter the WarwickshireMuseum as enquiries with surprising frequency. Mostcommon are Cretaceous flint nodules from localPleistocene deposits or English coastal sites. Oftenperceived by enquirers to be fossilised teeth or bones,many represent partial casts of arthropod burrows(Thalassinoides isp.).Cut slabs of shelly ooidal ironstone, quarried fromthe Lower Jurassic Marlstone Rock Formation atEdgehill, southern Warwickshire, have been used asfacings on several buildings around the market squarein the town centre of Warwick, close to theWarwickshire Museum at the Market Hall. The slabsdisplay cross-sections through a variety of welldefinedburrows including ‘dumb-bell’ shapedDiplocraterion and/or Rhizocorallium, andThalassinoides (Figure 7). These afford opportunitiesFigure 7 (below). Bioturbated Hornton Stone (LowerJurassic ooidal ironstone) used as a facing on a modernbuilding, Warwick Market Place. The dumb-bell shapedstructures (arrowed) are cross-sections throughDiplocraterion or Rhizocorallium burrows. Slab is 590mm across.-251-