Wigan Album

Interesting photo that Ron, I remember when they were opencasting at the Alexandra pit they came across a lot of fossilised trees and other prehistoric large fern plants. The secondary school at Pemberton had a wonderful collection of fossils, even whole fish forever captured in stone.

The Bulldog Mine (Coal Seam) is part of the Ince Series, which outcrops around Ince and occurs widely across this part of the Lancashire Coalfield. This particular coal seam is also often called the Bottom Ince Yard. The Ince series was worked in a number of the 70s and 80s opencast sites in and around Wigan: Albert near Bickershaw, the Tan Pit Slip Group near Bryn, Amberswood at Ince and Millers Lane near Atherton. Upright fossil trees like the one in the photograph were found at the same geological horizon ie above the Bottom Ince Yard at all of the above sites. What I find interesting is that the trees have been fossilised in an upright ie living position and must have been still alive and growing when they were buried by the sediment which now forms the rock around them.

I was recently across in Las Vegas and went into a fossil shop. They had some FANTASTIC specimens. There was one, a 6 feet dia. piece of stone with hundreds of fossilised fish crustaceans etc. I asked the guy how much it was and he said $5,000 I told him I lived in the U.K. and he said if I bought it he would pay the postage. To be honest If I had had a big win on the tables. I would have bought it. As it was I bought a polished stone dish with an ammonite in for £30.00<g>

we saw them many times in the yard mine we knew them as pot holes, shiny and black, smooth round lumps of very heavy hard rock something to be feared of as no one knew how big they was,the rocks round the fossil was all loose rock that could drop at anytime as you can see in the photo if it wasn't boarded up good