Footprints and Fractures

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Fossils

An artists impression of Eryops sp., a temnospondyli possibly an ancestor of the animal that made the footprints on the rock at Brimham 320 miilion years ago.

Footprints, Rock Fractures and Fossils

Found at the base of the western escarpment are on the surface of one of the rocks are the footprints left by an ancient predator.

An often overlooked, possibly unique, feature of Brimham are the remarkable massive fractured and split rocks across the site and hidden away are fossils of life during the Carboniferous period.

“Salamander” Footprints

Stephen Lewis

On a rock at the base of the cliff under Lover’s Leap are a set of distinctive marks and indentations.

These have been interpreted as the claw marks from it’s front foot, footprints from the hind feet and even the tail swipe of a large amphibian animal living during the Carboniferous period and present in the area 320 million years ago.

The animal was more than likely a temnospondyli, a large primitive amphibian, an apex predator that lived in the streams and rivers of the Carboniferous period, with some species growing up to several metres in length.

Rock Fractures

Stephen Lewis

The Great Split Rock, with a gap between each side large enough to walk through.

Stephen Lewis

The Great Split Rock.

Fracture

The rock is unusual in that the fracture features on the two sides are very well preserved and are visible as mirror images on both the left and right hand sides. The symmetry is very visible and has not been distorted or erroded away.

Fracture

The features visible along the sides of the Split rock correspond to those described for conchoidal fractures in materials such as metals and some very fine grained minerals.

Stephen Lewis

Rock fracture.

Fracture

Most of the rock fractures found at Brimham are on the edges of the cliffs below Lovers Leap, on the west side of the escarpment.

Stephen Lewis

Rock fractures.

Fracture

Interestingly, the majority of the fracture features appear to have a common orientation running South-West to North-East.

Stephen Lewis

Rock fracture.

Fracture

This particular fracture, close to Castle Rocks, exhibits a different structure to most of those below the escarpmen and only the bottom part of the fractured surface remains.

Very few fossils can found at Brimham but at the base of the Eagle Rock can be found two fossils of the plants, Calamites and Lepidodendron.

Calamites

Lepidodendron

Stephen Lewis

Fossil Calamites.

Calamites

Ancient horsetails

Calamites are an extinct group of ancient horsetail plants that grew to be medium sized trees up to heights of 30 - 50 metres. They were a common species of Carbiniferous coal swamps.

Modern horsetails don't grow more than 1.5 metres tall.

An artists impression of Calomites growing in the understory of a Carboniferous swamp.

Stephen Lewis

Lepidodendron fossil.

Lepidodendron

A primitive vascular plant

Growing up to 50 metres high with trunks over a metre in diameter, these were an extinct group of lycophyte plants, sometimes called clubhouses, with a very distinctive diamond shaped pattern on their fossilised bark.

These plants did not produce seeds but reproduced by releasing spores.

An artists impression of a Carboniferous swamp where Lepidodendron tower over the landscape.