Munday's Hill Quarry, Heath and Reach, Central Bedfordshire, Bedfordshire, England, UKi

Regional Level Types
Munday's Hill Quarry	Quarry
Heath and Reach	Civil Parish
Central Bedfordshire	Unitary Authority
Bedfordshire	County
England	Constituent Country
UK	Country

Munday’s Hill Quarry (formerly Garsides Pit) is a sandpit in the parish of Heath & Reach and was opened in 1925. It is about a mile north of Leighton Buzzard. The strata includes two of the three possible types of sand within the Lower Greensand Formation. Both offer beautifully developed sedimentary structures showing the tidal nature of the currents including ripples (some with mud drapes†), cross-stratification (bi-directional†), tidal bundles†, ripple cross-lamination, and a good assemblage of trace fossils and fossil wood in the upper sands. The wood shows different styles of preservation: lignite, charcoal, and replacement by iron mineralisation (some including pyrite). Wood can be tiny fragments up to logs of several metres.

The quarry has been proposed as a potential essential RIGS (Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Sites) site.

BEDFORDSHIRE RIGS SITE PROPOSAL FORM

This is an excellent, large quarry exposure of:

Lower Greensand (Brown Sands, good sedimentary structures and trace fossils)
Lower Greensand (Silver Sands, good sedimentary structures and fossil wood)
Sandstone channels with unusual mineralisation such as vivianite
The Silty Beds (a tidal flat sequence)
Shenley Limestone (contained within the topmost ironstone band of the Silty Beds, but it is not accessible at present due to the steep face)
Cirripede Bed (of lowermost Gault)
Gault (c. 10 m of Lower and Upper Gault, all zones present)

Due to the fullness of the stratigraphic succession at this site, which includes unusual and rare beds, this is an essential site for RIGS.

Elsewhere, Bedfordshire County Council refer to quarries here as the Munday Hill Number 1 & Number 2 Pits.

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