Blackhorse Quarry is a Site of Special Scientific Interest

Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...

 in East Sussex, England and is of geological interest.The site has a great value of vertebrate palaeontological interest, it is the type locality for the Wadhurst Clay Telham Bond Bed. The
bone bed is a conglomerate of polished pebbles (indicating a former high energy surface), fish scales, coprolites, bones, teeth
and scutes. The reptiles recorded include turtles, crocodiles (Goniopholis), pterosaurs
(Ornithocheirus), and dinosaurs (Megalosaurus

Megalosaurus

Megalosaurus is a genus of large meat-eating theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic period of Europe...

, Cetiosaurus

Cetiosaurus

Cetiosaurus meaning 'whale lizard', from the Greek cetus/κητος meaning 'sea monster' and saurus/σαυρος meaning 'lizard', was a sauropod dinosaur from the Mid to Late Jurassic Period in what are now Europe and Africa. It is estimated to have been about long and to have weighed roughly...

, Iguanodon

Iguanodon

Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...

Hylaeosaurus). This site has yielded large numbers of specimens in the past, and it
has excellent potential for further finds.


Wealden interest

The Telham Pebble (Bone) Bed yielded a wealth of vertebrate remains during the mid-
19th century from the Black Horse quarry on Telham Hill. This classic and important site has
great potential for the study of this rock and its faunas.
The vertebrate material comprised fish, coprolites and a wide variety of reptiles.
Being equivalent to the Cliff End Pebble Bed, this is a prime prospect for early mammals. Inorganic debris includes extrabasinal pebbles. The underlying Cliff End
Sandstone Member here is calcareous (Tilgate Stone) facies and probably only the
proximal (pro-fan-delta) facies is developed. It also deserves detailed investigation.
The sequence lies in the Lower Wadhurst Clay Formation (Hastings Beds Group),
above the marker horizon

Marker horizon

Marker horizons or chronohorizons or marker beds are stratigraphic units of the same age and of such distinctive composition and appearance, that, despite their presence in separate geographic locations, there is no doubt about their being of equivalent age and of common origin...

s of the Brede Soil Bed and Top Ashdown Pebble Bed.