Butts Quarry fossils and fossil collecting
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 Butts Quarry can be found in Ashover, which is a village, to the North East of Matlock. Follow the A632 from Matlock and turn off to Ashover at Kelstedge.
Follow the road down, you will pass a hairpin bend with public footpaths to the left and right. This is actually where you will walk to, but for parking, continue until you reach a road to the left with the local school.
From the car, walk back to the hairpin bend. On your left (West), you should see a large double gate, with a public footpath to the right of the gate.
Follow straight ahead of you, all the way. The footpath will actually turn into the woods on the left, but instead, continue to head straight. After the wooded area finishes on the left, you will see the large quarry.
GRID REF: SK 34075 63104
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High
Fossils are very common from this quarry. Search the fallen blocks around the sides of the quarry. You can also find several minerals at this location, including Fluorite (Very similar to Blue John in colour), Galena, and Calcite.
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Older Children
Suitable for older children under adult supervision, this is a large open quarry with a flat, overgrown floor. However, loose rocks can be found all around the edges to look through. |
Good Access
Access is very good, A bit of a walk from the safe parking area, down the road and across the field to this quarry, but it is easy going. |
Disused Quarry
This is a large disused quarry, along a public footpath. Fossils and minerals are found in the rocks around the quarry. The quarry floor is now overgrown, but there is plenty of fallen blocks around the perimeter. |
No Restrictions
This location is along a public footpath, there are no restrictions on entering the open quarry here, but please follow our general fossil code. |
This quarry has very steep and unstable faces, These are still crumbling, so it is best to keep away from these unstable sides. Please also resist the temptation to climb up to reach higher beds, the rock is too unstable for climbing. |
| Last updated: |
2011 |
| last visited: |
2011 |
| Written by: |
Alister Cruickshanks |
 
Butts Quarry is an excellent location for corals, other similar locations for Carboniferous Corals are;Parkhouse Hill, Castleton, Monsal Dale, Steeplehouse Quarry in Derbyshire.
Portishead, Weston-Super-Mare in Avon. In South West Wales, you can also find Silurian Corals from Freshwater East, Marloes Sands. Mortimer Forest, Shadwell Quarry, Upper Millichope , Llanymynech Quarry, and Wenlock Quarry, Wenlock Edge in the Shropshire District. Along the South West Coast, you can also collect Devonian Corals from Torquay along Hopes Nose and Daddy Hole. In Scotland, you can also find corals at St Monans.
From South Wales, Carboniferous Corals can be found at Lydstep Headland, West Angle Bay and Manorbier Bay.
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Butts Quarry is an extremely interesting location; it is one that is fascinating for anyone taking in interest in the geological features, mineral or for fossils. For minerals, Galena, Calcite, Fluorite and Barytes can be all found here in veins and strings, covered in the mineral section of this guide. Volcanic tuff also sits beneath the quarry floor, with fragments occurring in the lower beds.
For fossils, this is an excellent location. Most of the best fossils are found in the higher Eyam Limestone beds. Corals including Lithostrotion sp, Diphyphyllum sp. and Lonsdaleia sp. are found in excellent condition, along with crinoids and brachiopods including Gigantoproductids type.
Along the North-Eastern wall, some beds of a lighter and more fragile limestone can be found, these have some excellent corals but tend to be very poorly preserved, in the South-Eastern corner, the best fossils can be found, in a much harder limestone being well preserved. The rest of the quarry is more overgrown, or not as productive as the Eastern side.
Pale Eyam Limestone with Galena Strings and Fluorite
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Carboniferous, 330mya |
The Carboniferous Limestone at Butts Quarry is of the Monsal Dale and Eyam Limestone. This dips 15 degrees to the North West. The total thickness at this site, is 38m. The Eyam Limestone is the most fossiliferious and is more massively bedded and darker than the underlying massive beds of the Monsal Dale Limestone. Beneath the quarry floor, volcanic tuff is present. The basal limestone contains volcanic fragments and have been altered to a pale green colour...[more]
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The most common fossils are bivalves and brachiopods ....[more]
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Strings of Galena, Barytes and Calcite can be found. These tend to be in yellow, pale coloured beds. Fluorite, and a colour which closely resembles Blue John, can also be found here, although Blue John officially comes from the Castleton area, it is an almost identical colour at this site. These bands can also be found in the lower quarry, where chert forms in vertical joint planes....[more] |
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Stone Tumblers |
Microscopes |
East Midlands Guide |
If you are interested in fossil collecting, then you may also be interested in a stone tumbler (Lapidary). You can polish stones and rocks from the beach which
will look fantastic polished using a stone tumbler.
You can polish rough rock and beach glass whilst collecting fossils, on those days where you come back empty handed.
These are all high quality machines to give a professional finish to your samples. They can even be used for amber and fossils. |
At most locations, you can find microfossils. You only need a small sample of the sand. You then need to wash it in water and sieve using a test sieve. Once the sand is processed, you can then view the contents using a microscope.
We have a wide range of microscopes for sale, you will need a Stereomicroscope for viewing microfossils. The best one we sell is the IMXZ, but a basic microscope will be fine. Once you have found microfossils, you will need to store these microfossils.
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 Locations of Geologicl interest and for collecting rocks, minerals and fossils in the East Midlands Area. Includes the Geological History of the area. Areas covered are Charnwood Forest, The Peak District & The Vale of Belvoir. 130 pages. £15.95.
Buy from UKGE |
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