Geosites Project

Access is via the end of the road at Eorabus. Routes can be found online, but note that parking at Eorabus may be difficult.

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/mull/ardtun.shtml

WalkHighlands route to fossil tree site. Note the comment about the bog. Walking beside the fence is slightly easier, but welly boots are the answer, really.

https://ifpni.org/species.htm?id=BE7EADBE-9B44-0C2F-DFD0-A9…

Link to information regarding leaf specimen Phyllites ardtunensis (see photo here) illustrated in the Mull Memoir, held in Natural History Museum, London.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/…

David W. JOLLEY, John MILLETT, Malcolm HOLE and Jessica PUGSLEY, 2024. Integrated photogrammetry, lava geochemistry and palynological re-evaluation of the early evolution of the topographically constrained Mull Lava Field, Scotland. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, volume 114, pages 193–217, 2023 (for 2024).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034…

Jolley, D.W., Bell, B.R., Williamson, I.T. & Prince, I. 2009. Syn-eruption vegetation dynamics, paleosurfaces and structural controls on lava field vegetation: an example from the Palaeogene Staffa Formation, Mull Lava Field, Scotland. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, volume 153, pages 19–33.

https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/137/1/Bell_1997.pdf

B.R. BELL & D.W. JOLLEY, 1997. Application of palynological data to the chronology of the Palaeogene lava fields of the British Province: implications for magmatic stratigraphy. Journal of the Geological Society, London, volume 154, pages 701–708.

https://www.palass.org/beta/eps/shop/product/pid-75/

Boulter M.C. and Kvaček Z. The Palaeocene Flora of the Isle of Mull, Special Papers in Palaeontology, No. 42, 149 pages. The Palaeontological Association, London (1989); with 23 plates, 23 text-figures and 2 tables. Photographs of Ardtun specimens from the Museum of Natural History, London.

ABSTRACT. The same assemblage of dinoflagellate cysts, pollen and spores is found in intra basaltic sediments offshore at the Rockall Plateau and the Norwegian Sea, and onshore at the Isle of Mull, County Antrim, the Faeroe Islands, eastern Greenland and Spitsbergen. All but the latter comprise what has been called the Brito-Arctic Igneous Province (BIP). Palynological work has dated these sediments at around the Palaeocene-Eocene boundary, corroborating evidence from geophysics and geochemistry. The onshore localities have also yielded plant megafossils, many of which have been studied for over a century. We have given detailed attention to these plant fossils, including those curated in the British Museum Natural History, and have incorporated into our modern synthesis of the BIP flora some of Seward and Edwards; hitherto unpublished descriptions and comments, written in the 1930s. The Hamamelididae account for the great majority of the angiosperm taxa represented in the BIP Flora, suggesting that this group of plants was evolving very actively at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere in the Late Palaeocene. The new taxa described are Camptodromites, Juglandiphyllites ardtunensis, and Vitiphyllum sewardii. There are several new combinations of species, and all spores and pollen are described as biorecords. The data indicate an autochthonously preserved flora of limited variety, from the volcanic lowland environments which were associated with the first openings of the northernmost North Atlantic Ocean.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/003466677…

Phillips, L. 1974. Reworked Mesozoic spores in Tertiary leaf-beds on Mull. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, volume 17 (1974), pages 221–232.
ABSTRACT: Samples from the Lower Tertiary leaf-beds at Ardtun on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, yield an entirely reworked Jurassic spore assemblage. While the Rhaetian and Lower Jurassic are quite well-represented on Mull, Middle and Upper Jurassic rocks are rare. The presence of spores of this age indicates that the outcrop of these rocks was of greater extent in the Early Tertiary. Other instances of geological information being obtained from studies of reworking are given. Contemporaneous Early Tertiary spores are absent from the Ardtun deposits, which may be due to formation of the deposits in flood conditions or to differential destruction of the reworked and unreworked spores. Methods of detecting reworked pollen and spores are reviewed, and the potential problems inherent in a sample where only reworked spores occur are pointed out.

https://pubs.bgs.ac.uk/publications.html?pubID=B01951

Link to the BGS Memoir: E.B. Bailey, C.T. Clough, W.B. Wright, J.E. Richey & G.V. Wilson, The Tertiary and Post-Tertiary Geology of Mull, Loch Aline and Oban. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Scotland, 1924.

https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/abs/10.1144/gsl.jgs.188…

Gardner, J.S. 1887. Leaf-beds and gravels of Ardtun, Carsaig, etc. Mull. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, volume 43, pages 270–300.

https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/epdf/10.1144/transglas.…

Koch, W.E. 1883. Notes on Mull and its Leaf-beds. Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow, volume 7, issue 1, pages 52–56.

This short paper describes a collection of plant fossils made over a week, when the beds were still accessible; there is a stratigraphic section, but no photographs or drawings. The fossils were deposited in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow University.

https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/abs/10.1144/GSL.JGS.185…

Duke, FGS, 1851. On Tertiary Leaf-Beds in the Isle of Mull. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, volume 7, pages 89–103.
The leaf beds were first described by the Duke of Argyll.