There is an exposed Marine Band over the stream bed in places that yields an abundance of tiny Goniatites in the soft, dark shale. This represents a time when the area was underwater in a shallow area filling up with silt around 300 million years ago. At that time this part of what we now call England was somewhere below the equator in the southern hemisphere.
You can also find quite a few Bi-valves fossils that are a kind of shell like we find today at the seaside. You can see the impression of the shell in the shale rock.
The shale here is pretty damp and easily crumbles away. There are plenty of fossils you can just pick up from the already broken shale on the stream bed, no need to speed up erosion by mining the bank.
The fossils crumble and break apart easily so in this case it’s best to photograph them in-situ if you have a camera. They’re great to find and have a look at but they’re not really prize specimens.
Marine Band Goniatite Fossils image by munki-boy
Lead Mines Clough is a great area to explore, with everything from excellent scenery and plenty of wildlife to lead mines and ancient fossil beds
