Name of a village in Oxfordshire: used attrib. in Stonesfield slate (Geol.), a stratum of thin-bedded limestone and calcareous sandstone forming part of the Great Oolite series in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Stonesfield slates, i.e., slabs of limestone from this formation, are used for roofing.
1839. G. Roberts, Dict. Geol., Stonesfield, near Oxford; slate containing pterodactyles, &c., a lower portion of the great oolite.
1855. Orr’s Circ. Sci., Inorg. Nat., 71. Great oolite, Stonesfield slate, Fuller’s earth.
1865. Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms, Stonesfield Slate,… celebrated for its being the rock in which English geologists first detected mammalian remains … of Secondary epoch.
1885. Geikie, Text-bk. Geol., VI. iii. (ed. 4), 795. The fossils of the Stonesfield Slate are varied and of high geological interest.
