Question - Strange Stone in Mine - Egerton - Dec 2017

[RachelLi]

I recently took a trip into a stone mine in a quarry in Egerton near Bolton - I believe the stone that was mined/qaurried is sandstone.

Whilst wandering around, I spotted a couple of strange looking stones and took a picture of one of them, which should be shown below. I am quite curious as to why the pattern is like it is on the stone - almost fossil-like? I thought it kind of looked a bit like ribs of an animal.

My first thought was that it might have been caused by running water, but the mine was very dry (and I visited on a really wet day!) and the stone itself was on the ceiling of the mine, completely horizontal, so water couldn't really run down it.

I would be grateful for any thoughts

 

[DaveFM]

thats certainly a fossil I think, water takes a very long time to erode stone and the mine would only be a few hundred or less years old. You sometimes see straight grooves from blasting holes but they're quite different looking to your pattern. Theres nothing on the Aditnow site for any mines in Egerton but by no means all mines are listed there.

 

[Yorrick]

Looks like lava that's flowed over ripples in sand maybe?

 

[cunningcorgi]

Looks like lava that's flowed over ripples in sand maybe?

Most likely to be this.

Rock or whatever it originally was, under heat and pressure, formed into liquid bands which then cooled and became solid.

Unlikely to be drill marks as not straight.

 

[The Lone Ranger]

Hard to tell the scale, but the rock is sedimentary and formed by silts in an estuary millions of years ago. Every chance it is just from ripples as it was deposited at the time. I have found fossils in this type of rock before, but they were of large plant leaves. Looks like a hatched area in the rock. Also found evidence of marine worm casts / tunnels in similar rock types.

 

[RachelLi]

Hard to tell the scale, but the rock is sedimentary and formed by silts in an estuary millions of years ago. Every chance it is just from ripples as it was deposited at the time. I have found fossils in this type of rock before, but they were of large plant leaves. Looks like a hatched area in the rock. Also found evidence of marine worm casts / tunnels in similar rock types.

There were some other stones in the area that looked really similar to the picture you posted so definitely sounds possible! It all sounds very interesting.

The stone in the picture was probably about a foot and a half by a foot, if that gives a better sense of scale.

 

[RachelLi]

thats certainly a fossil I think, water takes a very long time to erode stone and the mine would only be a few hundred or less years old. You sometimes see straight grooves from blasting holes but they're quite different looking to your pattern. Theres nothing on the Aditnow site for any mines in Egerton but by no means all mines are listed there.

I believe the mine is called something along the lines of Round Barn Quarry/Sandstone Mine, if that helps. I have found it in the past on Aditnow. Not a lot of background that I can find anywhere on the Internet.

 

[The Lone Ranger]

Round Barn Quarry would make sense as it has a mine in it; Egerton Quarry is just a huge hole in the ground

 

[RachelLi]

Round Barn Quarry would make sense as it has a mine in it; Egerton Quarry is just a huge hole in the ground

Yep, I just searched it and it is Round Barn! There were three "separate" (ie, probably all connected as one at some point!) mines/entrances when I went.

I'm planning another visit soon and already taken quite a few pictures during my last visit so may try my first report after second visit

 

[The Lone Ranger]

Look forward to the report, just persevere on the first one and check it by using the preview button before posting

 

[DaveFM]

does it seem to be very extensive? Some of the stone mines are huge in size.

 

[Morrisey]

as you drop in to the adit at round Barn take a look at the roof, you'll see that the roof is a fossilised sea bed complete with ripples over the full expanse similar to that of your photo.

 

[RachelLi]

does it seem to be very extensive? Some of the stone mines are huge in size.

Not massive, but fairly big. I met a lot of dead ends after only about 10/15 minutes of walking but there were a fair amount of what looked like blocked passages and I didn't do a full explore on my last visit.

 

[RachelLi]

as you drop in to the adit at round Barn take a look at the roof, you'll see that the roof is a fossilised sea bed complete with ripples over the full expanse similar to that of your photo.

That's amazing! I'll have a closer look next time I go

 

[pastybarm]

There is a old water pipe access/maintenance tunnel in Egerton, but how and where you drop in I don't know. The exit grill is very secured as I remember. Not sure if the quarry in Egerton, has any tunnels of any decent length/size, I do recall a small one but it did not lead anywhere.