Totternhoe Stone Pit is a geological

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

Totternhoe Totternhoe is a village and civil parish in the Manshead hundred of the county of Bedfordshire, England. Overview Totternhoe is an ancient village in southern Bedfordshire, near Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard. Totternhoe Knolls has been a fo ...

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...

, England. It is also a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...

site, and the local planning authority is

Central Bedfordshire Council Central Bedfordshire Council is the local authority for Central Bedfordshire, a local government district in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. The council is a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functi ...

. The site displays the base of the Totternhoe Stone. It is a lime mud with an extensive deposit of late

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

shark teeth, some of species which have not been fully described, so it will be an important resource for further research. The lower levels contain larger teeth, and in upper ones there are some small

rays Ray or RAY may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), the bony or horny spine on ray-finned fish Science and mathematics * Half-line (geometry) or ray, half of a line split at an ...

. The site is part of the Totternhoe nature reserve, managed by the

Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire (WTBCN) is a registered charity which manages 126 nature reserves covering . It has over 35,000 members, and 95% of people in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshi ...

, but there is no public access to the Stone Pit.

References

{{coord, 51.890191, -0.576649, type:landmark_region:GB-BNE, display=title Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Bedfordshire Geological Conservation Review sites