| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
  Location within Somerset | |
| Area of Search | Somerset |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | ST511295 |
| Coordinates | 51°03′46″N2°41′57″W / 51.06274°N 2.69918°W Coordinates: 51°03′46″N2°41′57″W / 51.06274°N 2.69918°W |
| Interest | Geological |
| Area | 26.3 hectares (0.263 km2; 0.102 sq mi) |
| Notification | 1993 |
| Natural England website | |
Hurcott Farm (grid reference ST511295 ) is a 26.3 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, notified in 1993.
The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, distinct from latitude and longitude. It is often called British National Grid (BNG).
The hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides, or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres.
Somerset is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel, its coastline facing southeastern Wales. Its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon. Somerset's county town is Taunton.
At this site heavily cemented Pleistocene terrace gravels of the River Cary have yielded an abundant freshwater and terrestrial molluscan fauna. The fauna has an interglacial aspect, and includes Corbicula fluminalis and Pisidium clessini. This site is of critical importance as the keystone of the Pleistocene stratigraphy of southern Somerset, and as a freshwater facies-equivalent of the Burtle Beds.
The Pleistocene is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology.
Mollusca is the second largest phylum of invertebrate animals. The members are known as molluscs or mollusks. Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is estimated between 60,000 and 100,000 additional species.
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora. Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics.
