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Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs An Roinn Talmhaíochta, Comhshaoil agus Gnóthaí Tuaithe Depairtment o' Fairmin, Environment an' Kintra Matthers

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  • Belshaws Quarry ASSI

    Topics:
    • Biodiversity, 
    • Protected areas
    Protected area type: Areas of Special Scientific Interest
    Feature type: Earth Science
    County: Antrim
    Council: Lisburn and Castlereagh
    Guidance and literature: Belshaw's Quarry ASSI

    Belshaw’s Quarry is of importance because of its geology. It is one of a series of sites that describes the Clay-with-flints (CwF), a unique deposit whose exposure is mostly confined to the margins of the Antrim Plateau. Stratigraphically, at most localities, the deposit occurs between older white chalk of the Late Cretaceous Ulster White Limestone Formation (83 to 72 million years old) below, and lava flows of younger black basalt of the early Palaeogene Antrim Lava Group (63 to 60 million years old) above. The period of time within which the CwF formed spans about 10 million years of the Late Cretaceous and Early Palaeogene.

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