The Hanging Rocks Formation is a

geologic formation A geological formation, or simply formation, is a body of rock having a consistent set of physical characteristics ( lithology) that distinguishes it from adjacent bodies of rock, and which occupies a particular position in the layers of rock exp ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

, and is the youngest and smallest of the

Maplewell Group The Maplewell Group is an Ediacaran lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) present in Leicestershire in the English Midlands. The strata are exposed in Charnwood Forest, west of Leicester. Besides a variety of volcaniclastic sandsto ...

and the larger

Charnian Supergroup The Charnian Supergroup is a geologic supergroup in the United Kingdom, and is a part of the wider Charnwood terrane. It preserves fossils dating back to the Ediacaran and through into the Cambrian period, with suggestions that the Brand Group ...

which it is a part of. Due to this, and the fact that the rocks are not well exposed at both the top and base, there have been no

Ediacaran The Ediacaran ( ) is a geological period of the Neoproterozoic geologic era, Era that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period at 635 Million years ago, Mya to the beginning of the Cambrian Period at 538.8 Mya. It is the last ...

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

found to date, unlike the two underlying Bradgate and Beacon Hill Formations.

Dating

Despite the poor exposure of the formation, scientists were able to collect zircon crystals from the lower parts of the formation, allowing them to perform zircon U-Pb dating, which recovered a date of , close to the Bradgate Formations top age of 557 Ma. It is noted that the top of the formation is capped at a zircon age of roughly 550 Ma, which is just before the first formations of the

Nama assemblage The Nama assemblage was the last of the Ediacaran biotic Faunal assemblage, assemblages. Following the Avalon assemblage, Avalon and White Sea assemblages, it spanned from 550 megaannum, Ma to 539 Ma, coinciding with the Terminal Ediacaran bio ...

were deposited.

References

* {{cite web, title= Fossilworks: Gateway to the Paleobiology Database, author= ((Various Contributors to the Paleobiology Database)), url= https://www.fossilworks.org, access-date= 17 December 2021 Ediacaran Europe Geologic formations of the United Kingdom