Botany Hill, formerly known as Botany Quarry, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest

Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...

 in the Teesdale

Teesdale (district)

Teesdale was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district in County Durham, England. Its council was based in Barnard Castle and it was named after the valley of the River Tees....

 district of south-west County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It occupies a position on both sides of How Gill, just under 1 km north of the village of Hury

Hury

Hury is a village in Baldersdale, in the Pennines of England. It was historically located in the North Riding of Yorkshire but along with the rest of the former Startforth Rural District it was transferred to County Durham for administrative and ceremonial purposes on 1 April 1974, under the...

, in Baldersdale

Baldersdale

Baldersdale is a dale, or valley, on the east side of the Pennines in England, north of Barnard Castle. Its principal settlements are Hury and Briscoe. Baldersdale lies within the traditional boundaries of the North Riding of Yorkshire...

.

The site is important as the type locality

Type locality (geology)

Type locality , also called type area or type locale, is the where a particular rock type, stratigraphic unit, fossil or mineral species is first identified....

 of the Botany Limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

, a widespread marker horizon

Marker horizon

Marker horizons or chronohorizons or marker beds are stratigraphic units of the same age and of such distinctive composition and appearance, that, despite their presence in separate geographic locations, there is no doubt about their being of equivalent age and of common origin...

 that is key to an understanding of the stratigraphy

Stratigraphy

Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....

 of the Namurian

Namurian

The Namurian is a stage in the regional stratigraphy of northwest Europe with an age between roughly 326 and 313 Ma . It is a subdivision of the Carboniferous system or period and the regional Silesian series. The Namurian is named for the Belgian city and province of Namur where strata of this age...

sediments of the North Pennines and Northumberland Trough.