fossil collecting at Abbey Wood, London



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Abbey Wood Fossil Collecting Guide

Fossils and Fossil Collecting in Abbey Wood
Your Complete Geological Guide

Abbey Wood's highly Fossilferious shell beds, ideal for wet sieving. These beds are extremely rich in fossil sharks teeth, mammal and bird remains and fossil shells. This guide shows you where to find fossils and what to find.


Abbey Wood - London
Last updated: [19/02/08]  last visited 2000
Palaeogene
Written by Alister and Alison Cruickshanks, Edited by Joe Shimmin
Fossils & Fossil Collecting in Abbey Wood
(Fossil hunting at Abbey Wood) - 2003

Information for Fossil Hunting at Abbey Wood

Abbey Wood is extremly rich in fossil sharks' teeth, however these have to be sieved for and you will need to go on an organised trip as the area where collecting is permitted, requires shuttering and digging. All of this is recorded to avoid dugging of worked material. In addition, this is an SSSI site, and strict conditions apply when collecting.

Mammal and bird remains can also be found, however we recommended that all sieving on site is done with sieves with a mesh size no coarser than 0.5mm so that all important mammalian remains are retained.

(Suitable For Children)

Abbey Wood is suitable for children (on organised events only), they will be fascinated by the fossils that can be found.

 

Very easy to find with nearby parking at Abbey Wood, making it a very good location for family fossil hunting trips!. See our location access page for more information on how to access this location.

Pit

Although Abbey Wood is a pit, the actual fossilferious areas are filled in each year, new fresh trenches are dug and recorded on organised events, this is why you can only visit this location when an organised trip takes place.

ACCESS
RIGHTS
SSSI - ABBEY WOOD
Organised events only via the TRG
You cannot just turn up and find fossils here as you are unlikely to find anything!

Please follow our national fossil collecting code

A UK Fossils & Discovering Fossils initiative (c) 2006

! SAFETY NOTES FOR FOSSIL HUNTING AT ABBEY WOOD !

Common sense should be used when fossil collecting at all location. Abbey Wood digs should only be arranged with a geological society where safety can be maintained and monitored. Usually a member of the council will join any groups to ensure that proper shuttering is used.

A range of shark teeth from Abbey Wood
A range of shark teeth from Abbey Wood, London

Other Locations for collecting fossil Shark Teeth

If you like collecting sharks teeth you could also try Abbey Wood, Herne Bay, Bracklesham Bay, or Barton-on-Sea, Harwich,which are also of the Eocene age

Stone Tumblers (Lapidary)


Stone Tumblers are used for tumbling and polishing rough rock, stones and pebbles including those found on the beach and glass.

Whilst collecting fossils, on those days where you come back empty handed, you could collect rocks, stones and glass from the beach and tumble then at home.

These are all high quality machines to give a professional finish to your samples. The tumblers can be used with a variety of grits, most commonly Silicon Carbide Grit and Cerium Oxide. We have a wide range of rough rocks for sale too.

Microfossils are much easier to collect because they are so small that the vast majority of collections only concentrate on large finds. These small finds can simply be found by taking small samples of sands, crags, clays and soft rocks and examining them under a microscope.

We have a wide range of microscopes for sale, both for the study of fossils, but also educational and professional for use in the laboratory. We have Stereo microscopes, Compound Microscopes, Polarising Microscopes and Monocular Microscopes.


We have thousands of Test Sieves for Particle Analysis.

Endecotts Sieves: For accurate dependable results you can't buy a better test sieve than Endecotts. At every stage of manufacture each test sieve is individually inspected.

High Precision Tecan manufactures precision apertures as small as 3 microns for a wide array of applications such as filtering, sieving and nozzles. Its high-performance, ASTM/ISO compliant test sieves satisfy the most demanding fine particle grading requirements.

Metal Detectors


We have a wide range of metal detectors and motion detectors.

Our metal detectors are of a very high quality and are british made by the Viking Company.

Why not take a metal detector when your fossil hunting! you never know what you may find.


We sell a wide range of compasses to both explorers, students to boat owners.

Some field compasses have build in clinometers so you can calculate the height of cliffs.

Our compasses are high quality. They are an essential part of the explorers kit.


All of our fossils are genuine and have been checked carefully, we only buy from reputable sources.

We have a wide range of fossils from low cost budget fossils to expensive stunning display pieces.

Our fossils are of a very high standard and they come from all over the world.




Images, Graphics & Content - (C)opyright 1998-2007 Alister & Alison Cruickshanks.
UK Fossils Management - Alister Cruickshanks & Roy Bullard
UK Fossils Curator - Ian Cruickshanks
UK Fossils is a division of CWA Design and run in conjunction with UKGE. Whilst we try to ensure that all content is accurate and up to date we cannot guarantee this. UK Fossils takes no responsibility in the accuracy of this content, nor takes any liabilities for any trips, events or exchanges between visitors using either the discussion board or the UK Fossils planner. Any posted trips and events by UK Fossils are personal and not arranged by UK Fossils, therefore visitors should seek their own personal insurance cover. Please remember to always check the tide times.
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