Greenfoot 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 the Wear Valley

Wear Valley

Wear Valley was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district in County Durham, England. Its council was based in Crook.The district covered much of the Weardale area. In the west it was parished and rural, whereas in the east it was more urban...

 district of west County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is a disused quarry, situated in the Wear valley

River Wear

The River Wear is located in North East England, rising in the Pennines and flowing eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea at Sunderland.-Geology and history:...

, 1 km upstream from the village of Stanhope

Stanhope, County Durham

Stanhope is a small market town in County Durham, in England. It is situated on the River Wear between Eastgate and Frosterley on the north side of Weardale. The A689 trans-Pennine road meets the B6278 road from Barnard Castle to Shotley Bridge here....

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The site has national geological importance

Geological Conservation Review

The Geological Conservation Review is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological and geomorphological features of Britain...

 for its exposures of the Little Whin Sill

Whin Sill

The Whin Sill or Great Whin Sill is a tabular layer of the igneous rock dolerite in County Durham and Northumberland in the northeast of England. It lies partly in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and partly in Northumberland National Park and stretches from Teesdale northwards...

; there are other exposures in the bed of the Wear near to the quarry, but none shows so complete an exposure as Greenfoot Quarry. At the western end of the quarry is a unique exposure which displays columnar jointing in the sill with limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 exposed above and below the intrusion

Intrusion

An intrusion is liquid rock that forms under Earth's surface. Magma from under the surface is slowly pushed up from deep within the earth into any cracks or spaces it can find, sometimes pushing existing country rock out of the way, a process that can take millions of years. As the rock slowly...

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At Natural England

Natural England

Natural England is the non-departmental public body of the UK government responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, freshwater and marine environments, geology and soils, are protected and improved...

's last assessment, in June 2006, the site was classed as "unfavourable declining" because, it was noted, the exposure had become covered by vegetation, which obscured the features of interest.