THE GEOLOGY OF STRATHKINNESS

The following item is contributed by Richard Batchelor:

Most of the rocks in Fife are buried under soil and an assortment of clay

and sand and gravel which were deposited by glaciers between 25,000 and

14,000 years ago. The scraping action of the ice carved out the river valleys

and deposited large quantities of drift which now form the sub-soil of many

parts of Fife.

FOSSILS

The sandstone rocks underlying Strathkinness formed the basis of the

quarrying that took place in the village. They are composed of sand grains

cemented together from river sand deposited by deltas which drained off a

large land mass to the north about 360 million years ago (the Carboniferous

Period). A few bands of limestone and shales (compressed fine-grained mud)

were left when the sea flooded the area. At this time the land mass was south

of the equator and was covered by tropical forests and swamps. The decay

of the vegetation and its rapid burial by silt and mud formed the coal deposits

of Fife.

Evidence of these forests can be found at Knockhill ‘mines’ and at the

cliffs at St. Andrews in the form of black slivers of fossilized plant material.

Two fossil tree trunks now rest outside the house on Main Street, Strathkinness

known as ‘Fossil House’.

The tropical swamps which once covered this area were in a region of

active volcanoes. If the molten lava erupted underwater there would be

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