Hopes Nose fossils and fossil collecting

Other Locations similar to Hookend

There are a number of locations along the Torquay Coastline that are good for corals, another is Daddy Hole. There are other areas such as Derbyshire and the Lake District where you can find Carboniferous Corals, but by far the most famous county is Shropshire, locations such as Llanymynech Quarry with its Carboniferous Limestone which is on the Welsh Borderline, Upper Millichope, Shadwell Quarry, Wenlock Quarry, Wenlock Edge, Mortimer Forest, and The Onny Trail all Silurian rocks and highly fossilferious.

In Avon, you can collect Corals from Weston-Super-Mare and Portishead and Castleton, Parkhouse Hill, in the Derbyshire district. In South West Wales, you can also find Silurian Corals from Freshwater East, Marloes Sands. In Scotland, you can also find corals at St Monans.

From South Wales, Carboniferous Corals can be found at Lydstep Headland, West Angle Bay and Manorbier Bay. For Corals from Younger period, the Coralline Crag at Ramsholt makes ideal collecting. For collecting Bryozoans, Ramsholt and Thorpeness in Suffolk is another good location, you can also find Bryozoans from Aberlady in Scotland.

Hopes nose area is full of corals, occasional bivalves, bryozoan and sometimes trilobites. You are more likely to find lots of corals and bryozoans than anything else.

Within the layered Rocks, you can see layers of a sandy bright yellow colour, these sandy deposits contain the fossils. In the photo above, you can see sandy layers in the rock, Corals and Bivalves can be found in these layers. The layers can be seen in the cliff, and rocks on the foreshore. Occasional Trilobites can be found, but both corals, bryozoans and trilobites from this layer are often poorly preserved and very fragile.

The best fossils come from a harder limestone rocks which can be found near Hopes Nose point, it is not always possible to gain access from Torbay, and you may need to drive up to the lighthouse and drop down from here. However there is far more rocks to search through by walking from Torbay. well preserved Corals and bryozoan from the limestone can also be found just before the sheer cliff which is often inaccessible near Hopes Nose from the rocks piled up on the foreshore.

Daddyhole Limestone

At Hopes Nose, the rocks are Middle Devonian of the Eifelian Stage. Approximately 380 to 391 million years ago. Indications suggest that at Hopes Nose, the marine life lived and died in shallow. quiet water. The Thinly bedded limestone's vary from calcareous mud's to fragmental limestone's. Fossils can be found both in the limestone's and the calcareous mud within sandy deposits and were abundant in colonies which is why groups of fossils can be found together....[more

The Corals and Bryozoans from the Devonian Rocks of Torquay are well documented. Some of the best corals and Bryozoans come from here. They can be quite hard to see, but once you find one you are bound to find many more. Trilobites and Bivalves can also be found but are much rarer. They clean up very well, corals in Limestone can be polished. Other fossils that can be collected include Crinoids and Stromatoporoids.

Coral from Hopes Nose, Devon...[more]


Bryozoan...[more]

Geological Tools

The rocks at Hopes Nose are very hard, but the fossils can be easily extracted using the right tools. You may also find that some corals that show up clearly on the day, may look very faded when you take them home, wash them well and polish them and they will look as good as they did on the day.