Upware, about 15 km north of Cambridge, eastern England, was heavily involved in the ‘Coprolite’ Industry during the 19th century. Rich phosphate deposits especially at the base of the Lower Greensand (Early Cretaceous) were dug by hand and after processing supplied the Victorian agricultural industry with fertiliser. They were also a source of abundant reworked and indigenous fossils which feature in the original accounts and descriptions of the geology and palaeontology of the area including those in the classic award-winning Sedgwick Prize essays of Harris Teall in 1873 and Walter Keeping in 1879. Today, however, there are no permanent exposures of the Lower Greensand in the area. The sites of the original commercial excavations have been returned to agricultural land and traces of phosphatic lithoclasts and bioclasts may only be encountered in ploughed fields and the debris from animal burrows. In 2015 temporary trenches were dug by the authors in the base of the Lower Greensand Group, Woburn Sands Formation (Late Aptian). Much poorly bedded and phosphate depleted Woburn Sands was exposed which is attributed to backfilled ‘Coprolite’ workings. However, one site provided exposure of undisturbed Woburn Sands resting unconformably upon the Upware Limestone Member, West Walton Formation (mid-Oxfordian, Late Jurassic) and the feather edge of the Ampthill Clay Formation (mid-Late Oxfordian). The sand contains rich concentrations of reworked phosphatised fossiliferous concretions of original Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary to mid-Aptian age and indigenous calcitic fossils, of Late Aptian age. This is the first time that in situ Woburn Sands have been exposed in the Upware area since the time of the coprolite workings and are documented photographically for the first time. A detailed stratigraphic succession has been recorded and new geological and palaeontological collections have been made from accurately known levels at a precisely known site. New observations allow us to re-evaluate the early geological accounts and provide the opportunity to discuss more closely the relationships of the reworked faunas of Oxfordian to Aptian age, and in particular we draw attention to those faunas with affinities to the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary deposits of the Spilsby Basin to the north. This work confirms the basic accuracy of Keeping’s earlier seminal account.

在19世纪，Upware位于英格兰东部剑桥以北约15公里处，曾大量参与“ Coprolite”行业。手工挖出了丰富的磷酸盐沉积物，尤其是在下格林桑德（白垩纪早期）的底部，经过加工后为维多利亚州的农业提供了肥料。它们也是大量返工和本地化石的来源，这些化石在该地区的地质和古生物学的原始记载和描述中都具有特色，包括1873年哈里斯·泰尔（Harris Teall）和1879年沃尔特·凯宾（Walter Keeping）等经典获奖的塞奇威克奖论文中的那些。但是，该地区没有下格林沙的永久性暴露。最初的商业发掘地点已返回农田，仅在耕地和动物洞穴产生的碎屑中会遇到磷碎石碎屑和生物碎屑的痕迹。在2015年，作者在下格林桑德集团下的沃本金沙组（Aptian后期）挖了临时沟。卧床和磷酸盐贫化的Woburn Sands暴露得很多，这归因于回填的“ Coprolite”加工方法。但是，有一个站点暴露了未经扰动的沃本沙地，这些沃本沙不均匀地搁置在Upware石灰石构件，西沃尔顿组（中牛津，侏罗纪晚期）和安普希尔黏土层的羽毛边缘（中后期牛津）。沙子中含有丰富浓度的，经过重新加工的，从原始侏罗纪至白垩纪界线到Aptian时代的磷化石化石凝结物和Aptian后期的本地钙化石。这是第一次自从Coprolite工作以来，原位的Woburn Sands已在Upware区域曝光，并且首次进行了摄影记录。记录了详细的地层演替，并在精确已知的地点从精确已知的水平收集了新的地质和古生物学资料。新的观察结果使我们能够重新评估早期的地质记录，并提供机会更深入地讨论经过改造的牛津动物群与Aptian时代的关系，尤其是，我们提请注意与侏罗纪-白垩纪边界沉积物具有相似性的那些动物群北部的Spilsby盆地。这项工作证实了Keeping早期开创性帐户的基本准确性。