Brachiopod fauna from the Lower Silurian (Telychian) Purple
Shales, Devil's Dingle, ShropshireStaff: L. E. M. McCobb In
1967, a large temporary rock exposure was created when
excavations were made at Devil's Dingle, near Buildwas in
Shropshire, to dispose of ash from a new power station at
Ironbridge. Dr Philip Lane, a palaeontologist at Keele
University, collected extensively from the site while it was
accessible during the late 1960s and early 1970s, amassing a
large number of fossiliferous rock slabs. The aim of this
project is to study and describe the fossil brachiopods (sea
shells) from Lane's collection, which he donated to the National
Museum of Wales. The brachiopod fauna is approximately 430
million years old and is very diverse, with over thirty species,
including some new ones. The types of brachiopods present, and
their shell shapes, indicate that they lived in a low energy,
offshore shelf environment. Smaller shells would have lived
attached to the sea bed, but some of the larger shells reclined