| Cold Ash Quarry | |
| Aos: | Berkshire |
| Interest: | Geological |
| Coordinates: | 51.439°N -1.282°W |
| Area: | 0.4ha |
| Notifydate: | 1984 |
| Map: | Magic Map |
Cold Ash Quarry is a 0.4abbr=offNaNabbr=off geological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Newbury in Berkshire.[1] [2] It is a Geological Conservation Review site.[3] [4]
The quarry is unique in Britain for the collection of fossil plants and insects which occur in a layer of silt and clay within the Reading Beds. The fossils date to about 60 million years ago. The fossil flora consists of well-preserved angiosperm leaves, in some of these fossils there is evidence of the activity of contemporary leaf-miner insects. This is the only location in Britain at which fossil leaf-miner activity have been discovered.[5]
The site is private land with no public access.