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Bowers Quarries

Portland, Dorset

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The above image is copyright Dorset County Council 2000 and is reproduced here with permission .

Bowers Quarry has gradually extended south towards the sprawling Weston Estate as seen in this aerial photograph.

There are many old tramway remains between the quarry and the cliff edge as seen in the upper left-hand part of this aerial picture.

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The following pictures show the first attempt on Portland of mining for stone. This reduces the environmental impact of the industry. Both pictures are by kind permission of Norman Tapster.

The rest of these pictures were taken by me during U3A Geology group visit in 2005.

Left -Small crystallised entities embedded in the stone.

Right - The Purbeck Dirt Bed formed in a geologically brief period when the sea level was low.

The Portland and Purbeck beds which make up the overwhelming mass of the Isle of Portland were formed about 130 - 140 million years ago in shallow tropical lagoons when the land was at about 38 degrees north of the equator. For a brief time during the laying down of the Purbeck bed the seabed rose and dried out. This allowed soil to form, as seen above, and plants and trees grew. See http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/portnew.htm#dirt for more information. 

A wonderful mass of fossils displayed at Bowers Quarry. These were variously known as 'Osses 'Eads (because the bivalve Myophorella looked a little like a horse's head to quarrymen) and Portland Screws - a conical gastropod.

The mine at Bowers Quarry is experimental so that a huge number of measurements are being taken to measure the strength of the stone and to follow cracks. Only in this way can it be established whether it is safe to continue mining Portland Stone.

Work in progress in the mine.

A section through a fossil tree trunk.

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