Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
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Location | Oxfordshire |
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Grid reference | SP 476 041 [1] |
Interest | Biological Geological |
Area | 20.6 hectares (51 acres) [1] |
Notification | 1986 [1] |
Location map | Magic Map |
Hurst Hill or Cumnor Hurst is a 20.6-hectare (51-acre) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Oxford in Oxfordshire. [1] [2] It is a Geological Conservation Review site. [3]
The site is owned by All Souls College, Oxford, [4] and its mosses and liverworts have been monitored for more than fifty years. The hill is also important geologically. In 1879 a fossil of a Camptosaurus prestwichii, a large herbivorous dinosaur dating to the Upper Jurassic 153 million years ago, was found on the site. [5] The fossil belongs to a typically North African genus, and provides evidence of a land bridge across the proto-Atlantic in the Late Jurassic. [6]
The hill is mentioned in Matthew Arnold's poem The Scholar Gipsy. [4]
51°44′00″N 1°18′40″W / 51.73333°N 1.31111°W