Ammonite

I took Ben to college this morning for his third A level paper. and while he was dealing with the intricacies of mechanics, I had a pleasant walk along a country lane with flower-filled verges and made some more useful records for the 2020 Plant Atlas. 

In the afternoon Chris and I returned to Orton Pit to carry on with our pond surveys. As the weather was so hot we decided to limit our survey to three ponds, which was probably just as well as it was searingly hot in the sheltered hollows. The work is being done to assess the success of an ongoing pond restoration scheme. I found a very large lump of solid clay by the side of our last restored pond, with several very clear ammonite impressions. The Oxford clay is very rich in fossils from the Jurassic period, and there are several species of ammonite present, but this is most likely to be an imprint of one of the commonest genera, Kosmoceras.