Exceptional preservation of Upper Carboniferous (lower Westphalian) fossils from Edlington, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, UK DEAN R. LOMAX 1,2 * , PETER ROBINSON 1 , CHRISTOPHER J. CLEAL 3 , ALISTAIR BOWDEN 1 and NIGEL R. LARKIN 4 1 Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery, Doncaster, UK 2 School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK 3 Department of Natural Sciences, National Museum Wales, Cardiff, UK 4 The Natural History Department, Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, Norwich, Norfolk, UK A new fossil-bearing, Upper Carboniferous (lower Westphalian) locality in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, UK, is reported and an account of the fossils is presented. The diverse flora and fauna consists of plants, bivalves, arthropods (primarily xiphosurans), tentaculitids (microconchids), fish scales, shark egg capsules and coprolites. Fossils are preserved in siderite nodules and shales, and display excellent preservation and detail. Previous collecting of Carboniferous fossils in the Doncaster area has been minimal. The discovery of this locality addresses this deficit and is of further importance as such localities in the UK are diminishing in number with the cessation of coal-mining and the reclamation of mine dumps, further demonstrating the importance and recognition of the Edlington site. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 28 May 2014; accepted 21 July 2014 KEY WORDS Upper Carboniferous; Doncaster; Edlington; flora and fauna; Lagerstätten; Yorkshire Main Colliery 1. INTRODUCTION Fossil-rich localities that yield exceptional and complete fossil remains, often preserving fine details (including soft parts), which would not normally be found as fossils are termed Lagerstätten. Fossil Lagerstätten locations have been discovered across the world, and range from the Precam- brian through to the Quaternary. Famous Carboniferous examples include Mazon Creek in Illinois, USA, Joggins Fossil Cliffs in Nova Scotia, Canada and Montceau-les- Mines in eastern France (Selden and Nudds, 2012). Some of the classic, and perhaps most famous, Upper Carbonifer- ous Coal Measures Lagerstätten in England include Sparth Bottoms (Rochdale, Lancashire), Coseley (near Dudley, Staffordshire), Coalbrookdale (Shropshire) and Writhlington (Radstock, Somerset). Such locations have formed much of our understanding of the fauna and flora of the Upper Carboniferous Coal Measures in England (Anderson et al., 1997; Cleal and Thomas, 1994; Muir et al., 2012). Interest- ingly, by comparison, despite Yorkshire being famed for its coal mining industry, such reports of similar sites have been fairly poor. Although general studies of the flora and fauna of the Yorkshire Coal Measures have been recorded and documented (e.g. Kidston, 1897, 1900; Culpin, 1908a; Godwin and Calver, 1975; Scott and Chaloner, 1983; Scott, 1984), they are not as rigorous or extensive as those in Lancashire or Staffordshire. Recently, the remains of a new genus of shark were described from Todmorden, West Yorkshire, collected from an old colliery spoil dump (Martill et al., 2014). Previous reports of the flora and fauna from the Doncaster area were briefly discussed by Culpin (1908b, 1909). As coal mining in the South Yorkshire region is now largely non-existent, with many old spoil tips grassed over, obtaining specimens is very difficult. Additionally, some of the classic British Coal Measures sites are no longer accessible or material cannot be easily collected (Anderson et al., 1997). In this paper we report on Lagerstätte-type preservation of fossils collected at Edlington spoil tip site of the Yorkshire Main Colliery, Doncaster. 2. HISTORY AND GEOLOGICAL SETTING OF THE LOCATION The history of scientific collecting in Doncaster really began in earnest in the 1880s with the founding of the Doncaster *Correspondence to: D. R. Lomax, Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery, Chequer Rd, Doncaster, DN1 2AE, UK. E-mail: dean.lomax@manchester.ac.uk Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL Geol. J. 51: 42–50 (2016) Published online 18 August 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/gj.2602