Aug 15, 2007 · T here is plenty to see at St Monans, including raised beaches, an excellent example of a syncline, bedding planes packed with trace fossils and whole layers of rock full of fossil corals and crinoids.

Mar 31, 2021 · St Monans has a number of fossils including corals and also a coal seam. The rocks here have been folded and tilted since they were deposited.

Fossils (e.g. corals, brachiopods, crinoids, bivalves, burrows and plants) are common. Igneous features such as volcanoes and dykes are well displayed.

The St Monans Brecciated Limestone, which forms the base of the Lower Limestone Formation, is a nodular limestone containing many seams of calcareous shale or clay which branch and reunite round limestone nodules which may be up to 25 cm thick and 25 to 50 cm long.

Apr 8, 2023 · The St Monans White Limestone outcrops at Fife in Scotland feature some of the richest pickings, with fossils being nicely preserved in three dimensions rather than flattened impressions or moulds. The durability of limestone does mean that, once you get your fossils home, they are essentially zero maintenance.

Sediments belonging to this formation overlie the Strathclyde Group and are exposed on the coast at St Monans and Elie in the east and Kinghorn in the west. Inland many quarries have been opened up in the limestones, but few are now worked.

We assembled at St Monans on a falling tide to examine the foreshore south west to Ardross. Fluctuating conditions in the carboniferous of about 326Ma ago had resulted in a stratigraphy of sandstones, limestones and shales of contrasting hardness. These were subsequently folded, intruded by volcanic necks and dykes and faulted.

You may have noticed that St Monans is a popular place for geology field trips. Here's a talk that will help explain why ...

There is plenty to see at St Monans, including raised beaches, an excellent example of a syncline, bedding planes packed with trace fossils and whole layers of rock full of fossil corals and crinoids. Some excellent Carboniferous plant fossils can be found at Anstruther.

Full faunal lists for most of the fossil localities in Fife are to be found in the publications of the Geological Survey, e.g. Geology of East Fife (Forsyth and Chisholm 1977). (Map 1) indicates the location of the 18 excursions.