by Petar Vjestica, Works Manager, Rugby Cement Works, South Ferriby.

and

The Geology and some recorded fossils from South Ferriby Quarry

by Felix Whitham

In past issues of Humberside Geologist very little has been published about how the rocks and clays we all keenly examine, describe and extract fossils from, are utilised and manufactured into a vast variety of materials and other essential everyday products. It is therefore a refreshing change to be able to publish details from a leaflet on Cement Making prepared by Petar Vjestica the Works Manager of Rugby Cement at South Ferriby in North Lincolnshire. The chalk and clays used in the manufacture of cement are extracted from their Middlegate Lane Quarry near to the main works. The following 10 figures which make up the leaflet are reproduced here, with slight modifications to Figure 3 to include some geological features.

figure 1; figure 2; figure 3; figure 4; figure 5; figure 6; figure 7 ; figure 8; figure 9; figure 10

As a Geological Society we are pleased to have the opportunity to publish this excellent transcript (with permission by Petar) and at the same time express our sincere thanks to the management of Rugby Cement for allowing our members to visit the quarry over a period of many years for research purposes and to collect fossils.

My own experience with South Ferriby quarry dates back to the early 1950s before the works and quarry was taken over by Rugby Cement in 1962 and of course long before the Humber Bridge was built which meant a long journey from Hull via Goole. Eastwoods Humber Cement, the previous owners, first started operations in 1938 and in those days chalk was dug by hand and transported to the works from Middlegate Lane by overhead bucket container over a distance of 1.5 km. Clay, mostly Boulder Clay, was extracted from pits behind the works and moved via a narrow gauge railway system. At that time the first excavation of chalk was from the flinty part of the Turonian lower Terebratulina lata Zone and later from the flintless Mytiloides labiatus Zone, subsequently penetrating about 22 metres of Cenomanian, flint-free, mostly greyish chalk.

I was fortunate to be able to observe some of the steady increase in the depth of the quarry which accelerated rapidly following the take over by Rugby Cement in 1962, when a new high speed conveyor belt with a capacity of 4 000 tonnes a day replaced the old bucket system and a new 1 000 tonnes a day kiln, complete with the latest technology in chalk and clay grinding was installed in 1967. Output was doubled in 1973 with the introduction of more advanced technical equipment allowing a rapid increase to take place in chalk extraction which quickly reached the Lower Cretaceous Red Chalk and Carstone deposits, which although not suitable for cement making are utilised for stabilizing old workings and for back-fill. The underlying Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge and Ampthill Clay was soon exposed making it possible for the first time to provide both clay and chalk from within the confines of the quarry. At the present time 16 to 18 metres of clays are worked and the Oxfordian/Kimmeridgian boundary can be observed about 8 metres above the floor of the quarry.

Varying quarry operations at different horizons over a period of many years has enabled the writer to log the succession in considerable detail and at the same time collect and record fossil horizons (see enclosed Figure and list of fossils). A full report was first published in Humberside Geologist No. 10 1992, from which further more detailed information can be obtained.