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Ardross Castle Sandstone

There are several features of interest here.

At the bottom is a surface with fossil ripples, which look just like the ripples left behind by the tide on any sandy beach. However there are several steps in the surface, resulting from faulting after the sand had been lithified. You can trace individual ripples across the faults.

Above this is the Lower Ardross Castle Sandstone, though the unit is much thinner than in NO5000 : Lower Ardross Castle Sandstone, and above this again is a coal seam. Coal forms from organic material, usually trees, growing in a swampy environment in tropical conditions. Just below the coasl is some pale lumpy rock. This is called a seatearth, and it forms when the nutrients in the original deposit are leached out or extracted by plants, and if you look closely at the rock face there are traces of fossil rootlets penetrating down from the coal seam above.

Above the coal is another massive sandstone, this one being the Upper Ardross Castle Sandstone, with glacial till and modern vegetation at the top.