The Kimmeridge Clay Formation is a sedimentary

Sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....

 deposit of fossiliferous marine clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

 which is of Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to  Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

 age. It occurs in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Kimmeridge Clay is arguably the most economically important unit of rocks in the whole of Europe, being the major source rock

Source rock

In petroleum geology, source rock refers to rocks from which hydrocarbons have been generated or are capable of being generated. They form one of the necessary elements of a working petroleum system. They are organic-rich sediments that may have been deposited in a variety of environments including...

 for oil fields in the North Sea hydrocarbon province

North Sea oil

North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid oil and natural gas, produced from oil reservoirs beneath the North Sea.In the oil industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the area known as "West of Shetland", "the Atlantic Frontier" or "the...

. It has distinctive physical properties, log responses, and palynological

Palynology

Palynology is the science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs, including pollen, spores, orbicules, dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans and scolecodonts, together with particulate organic matter and kerogen found in sedimentary rocks and sediments...

 signature.

It is named after the village of Kimmeridge

Kimmeridge

Kimmeridge is a small village in the Purbeck district of Dorset, England, situated on the English Channel coast. Kimmeridge is about south of Wareham and about west of Swanage and is on the Isle of Purbeck...

 on the Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 coast of England, where it is well exposed and forms part of the Jurassic Coast

Jurassic Coast

The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in East Dorset, a distance of ....

 World Heritage Site

World Heritage Site

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

. It exists across England, in a band stretching from Dorset in the south-west, north-east to East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

.

The Humber Bridge

Humber Bridge

The Humber Bridge, near Kingston upon Hull, England, is a 2,220 m single-span suspension bridge, which opened to traffic on 24 June 1981. It is the fifth-largest of its type in the world...

's foundations are in the Kimmeridge Clay deposits under the Humber

Humber

The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...

 estuary.

The fossil fauna of the Kimmeridge Clay includes a reptile fauna of turtles, crocodiles, sauropods, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs, as well as a number of invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

 species.

Ornithischians

Indeterminate nodosaurid remains have been found in Wiltshire, England. Indeterminate stegosaurid remains have been found in Dorset and Wiltshire, England.

Genus	Species	Location	Member	Abundance	Notes	Images
Bugenasaura	Indeterminate	Dorset			Kimmeridge clay remains previously identified as belonging to Bugenasaura are now regarded as the remains of an indeterminate euornithopod. However, the genus is also defunct now anyway, as scientists have determined it to be a junior synonym of Thescelosaurus Thescelosaurus Thescelosaurus was a genus of small ornithopod dinosaur that appeared at the very end of the Late Cretaceous period in North America. It was a member of the last dinosaurian fauna before the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event around 65.5 million years ago... .
Cumnoria Cumnoria Cumnoria is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It is a basal iguanodontian which lived during the upper Jurassic period in what is now Oxfordshire, United Kingdom....	C. prestwichii	Oxfordshire		"Fragmentary skull and skeleton."
Dacentrurus Dacentrurus Dacentrurus , originally known as Omosaurus, was a large stegosaur of the Late Jurassic Period .-Description:...	D. armatus	Cambridgeshire Dorset Wiltshire			Wiltshire remains include specimens previously referred to Omosaurus armatus and O. hastiger.
Omosaurus	O.armatus	Wiltshire			Reclassifed as Dacentrurus armatus because the generic name Omosaurus was preoccupied.
	O. hastiger	Wiltshire

Saurischians

Indeterminate ornithomimmid remains have been found in Dorset, England. An undescribed theropod genus was found in Dorset.

Genus	Species	Location	Stratigraphic position	Material	Notes	Images
Bothriospondylus Bothriospondylus Bothriospondylus is an dubious genus of sauropod dinosaur. It lived during the Late Jurassic.The type species, Bothriospondylus suffossus, was described by Richard Owen in 1875. The specific epithet suffossus means "undermined" in Latin, a reference to the fact that pleurocoels had hollowed out...	B. suffosus	Wiltshire		"[Seven] dorsal and sacral centra."
Cetiosaurus Cetiosaurus Cetiosaurus meaning 'whale lizard', from the Greek cetus/κητος meaning 'sea monster' and saurus/σαυρος meaning 'lizard', was a sauropod dinosaur from the Mid to Late Jurassic Period in what are now Europe and Africa. It is estimated to have been about long and to have weighed roughly...	C. humerocristatus	Dorset			Now Duriatitan Duriatitan Duriatitan is a genus of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur that lived in the Late Jurassic in what is now United Kingdom. The holotype specimen of Duriatitan, BMNH 44635, is a partial left upper arm bone which was found by R.I. Smith near Sandsfoot in the lower Kimmeridge Clay from Dorset,... .
	Indeterminate	Oxfordshire			Remains previously referred to an indeterminate species of Cetiosaurus are now regarded as indeterminate sauropod material.
Duriatitan Duriatitan Duriatitan is a genus of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur that lived in the Late Jurassic in what is now United Kingdom. The holotype specimen of Duriatitan, BMNH 44635, is a partial left upper arm bone which was found by R.I. Smith near Sandsfoot in the lower Kimmeridge Clay from Dorset,...	D. humerocristatus	Dorset		Humerus Humerus The humerus is a long bone in the arm or forelimb that runs from the shoulder to the elbow....	A titanosauriform
Gigantosaurus Gigantosaurus Gigantosaurus is a poorly known sauropod dinosaur genus from England. The type species, Gigantosaurus megalonyx, was named and described by Harry Govier Seeley in 1869...	G. megalonyx	Cambridgeshire			Remains previously referred to Gigantosaurus megalonyx are now regarded as indeterminate sauropod material.
Ischyrosaurus Ischyrosaurus "Ischyrosaurus" was a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Kimmeridgian-age Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay of Dorset, Cambridgeshire, England...	I. manseli	Oxfordshire		"Humerus."	Remains previously referred to Ischyrosaurus manseli are now regarded as indeterminate sauropod material.
Megalosaurus Megalosaurus Megalosaurus is a genus of large meat-eating theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic period of Europe...	M. insignis	Wiltshire			Remains previously referred tentatively to Megalosaurus insignis are now regarded as indeterminate theropod material.
	Indeterminate	Dorset			Remains previously referred to an indeterminate species of Megalosaurus are now regarded as indeterminate theropod material.
Ornithopsis Ornithopsis Ornithopsis was a medium-sized Early Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur, from England. It has been considered a synonym of the wastebasket taxon Pelorosaurus, but recent research suggests that this is not as clear-cut as supposed...	O. leedsi	Oxfordshire		"Caudal vertebrae, pelvis."	Remains previously referred to Ornithopsis leedsi are now regarded as indeterminate sauropod material.
	Indeterminate	Cambridgeshire Norfolk			Remains previously attributed to one or more indeterminate species of Ornithopsis are now regarded as possible indeterminate sauropod material.

Invertebrates

The invertebrate fauna of the Kimmeridge Clay includes:

• Mollusca
  Mollusca
  The Mollusca , common name molluscs or mollusksSpelled mollusks in the USA, see reasons given in Rosenberg's ; for the spelling mollusc see the reasons given by , is a large phylum of invertebrate animals. There are around 85,000 recognized extant species of molluscs. Mollusca is the largest...
  
  :
  • Cardium striatulum
  • Ostrea deltoidea
  • Gryphaea (Exogyra) virgula
  • The ammonite aptychus
    Aptychus
    An aptychus is a type of marine fossil, a hard anatomical structure like a curved shelly plate, which was part of the body of an ammonite. Paired aptychi have, on rare occasions, been found at or within the aperture of ammonite shells....
    
     known as "Trigonellites latus"
  • Belemnotheutis
    Belemnotheutis
    Belemnotheutis is an extinct genus of cephalopods which existed from the Middle to Upper Jurassic . They are related to belemnites but differ significantly in morphology. Belemnotheutis fossils are some of the best preserved among coleoids...