Past Environments

Leicestershire was once peppered by volcanos, throwing out lava, rocks and dust.  Their remains form much of the Charnwood Forest area.

Leicestershire had a range of mountains running down its middle.  Only the hard cores of these remain.

Leicestershire was once part of the large sea where the Carboniferous limestone was laid down - where corals and starfish and shells grew in abundance and left fossils behind them.

The Triassic deserts would have been hot and subject to flash floods, where land plants and animals were sparse.

Covered in water again - warm Liassic seas were full of sea-reptiles and fishes, corals and other invertebrates.

Vast ice sheets laid down sands and gravel beds covering much of the two counties - as the ice retreated humans and other animals re-colonised the land and modern tribes started to manage it.