The Storeton Quarry Discoveries Of Triassic Vertebrate Footprints, 1838 : John Cunningham's Account

Abstract

Chirotherium footprints were discovered at Storeton Quarry, near Birkenhead, in June l838. The footprints were impressed into thin seams of clay within the Keuper Sandstone. The stone tended to split apart along the clay layers, exposing natural casts of the footprints on the underside of the overlying sandstone. A previous paper (Tresise 1989) described the ways in which the Liverpool Natural History Society promulgated and publicised the finds. The present paper concentrates on the role played by John Cunningham, the Society member who first recognised the footprints.