View of north face of pit

The highest worked gypsum (Cocks Seam) forms a string of pinkish nodular masses – some of which form monoliths up to 3 m thick – visible in the picture at the level of the hydraulic excavator. Overlying the red-brown Branscombe Mudstone Formation (previously the Cropwell Bishop Formation) in which the gypsum occurs, is the Blue Anchor Formation (grey-green dolomitic mudstone, 4–5 m thick), which marks the top of the Mercia Mudstone Group. This is overlain in turn by the Westbury Formation (a distinctive, fossiliferous black fissile mudstone) and Lilstock Formation (Cotham Member: grey mudstone), which together comprise the Penarth Group. The highest part of the sequence is occupied by the Triassic-Jurassic Barnstone Member (dark grey mudstone with thin beds of limestone), which forms the base of the Scunthorpe Mudstone Formation (Lias Group). The quarry face has been tiered, which partly accounts for the apparent sharpness between some of the units.