March 22, 2015
In the limestone quarries there may be up to ten feet long fossil of
ordoceratiter, an octopus who lived during the Ordovician of about 450 million
years ago. When the sea was 30-40 meter deep here. Have no expectation of
finding such fossils as we exit the car in the parking to Listarum Ridge
Nature Reserve on the road between Smedstorp and St. Olaf.
Following Gårdlösa trail east. A stile leads into an enclosed field. Between
two stone walls into the woods. Many Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem who is about to
bloom. There is the ruin of a lime kiln. At that grows hepatica, they are not
really blooming yet. On the bridge over a river, past a picnic area and on the
ridge above a pond. Appearing on a grass road, after a short distance is a
stile in a pasture. A sign informs that in there is a disbanded limestone
quarry. The limestone was broken and carted to Ignaberga to become cement.
A great quarry and a little smaller. Take lunch at the lesser. In the great
quarry are steep sides. Looking for fossils in among the rocks on a ledge. On
the one side you can with little trouble getting down. Slide among the loose
stones. Looking for fossils in them. Find nothing. It's beautiful down
there. In the eastern part is a narrow gauge with remnants of a railway where
the stone was transported out. Go up and continues the grass road south to a
small quarry, Kalvahagen quarry.
Not so much, a pile, a body of water and a wall. Goes back to the big quarry
to locate another limestone quarry, follows the remains of the narrow gauge
railway to the east. The rails remain. Halt at a house. Do not want to cross
the house, go back, crossing a pasture, step over a fence into a field. Take a
short cut across the field to the dams north of the house. The ponds are
remnants of a limestone quarry. Stone shards cover the beaches. Looking again
after fossils, twist and turn stone pieces. Perhaps? In any case, the idea
boggles the mind that there may be remains of animals that lived in the sea
450 million years ago. Goes back, Coffee at the lime kiln.
Map