CYNGOR CEFN GWLAD CYMRU

COUNTRYSIDE COUNCIL FOR WALES

SITE OF SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC INTEREST: CITATION

VALE OF GLAMORGAN EWENNY AND PANT QUARRIES

Date of Notification: 1998

National Grid Reference: SS 895760 and SS 902768

O.S. Maps: 1:50,000 Sheet number: 170

1:10,000 Sheet number: SS 87NE & SS 975E

Site Area: 29.1 ha

Description:

These two quarries are located in the vicinity of Old Castle Down, approximately 4 km to the south of the centre of Bridgend and 3 km from the coast at Southerndown. They are of special interest for their fossils which are vital to the study of the evolution of mammals.

The quarries show vertebrate-bearing late Triassic - early Jurassic fillings in fissures in the Carboniferous Limestone. This is where most of the fossils used in the study of the earliest mammals have been found. Morganucodon watsoni, Kuehneotherium praecursoris and Kuhneon duchyense have been described from the fissures. The first is the earliest and most primitive prototherian, and the second the most primitive therian mammal known.