Seaham Quarry is a heritage-listed former quarry and now geological site at Torrence Street, Seaham, Port Stephens Council, New South Wales, Australia. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. History The glacigene origin of the Carboniferous sediments in the Seaham area was first recognised by Professor Edgeworth David in 1914. Subsequently, Sussmilch reported the occurrence of varved shales in the Seaham Quarry, which rapidly gained famed in Australia and internationally because of the perfection of preservation of the varves and the associated contorted beds exposed in them. David exhibited specimens of the varved shales in Honolulu in 1920 at the First Pan Pacific Science Congress, and three years later led a party of visiting scientists to the quarry on the occasion of the Second Pan Pacific Science Congress. In 1925 a signboard describing the phenomena exposed in the quarry was erected in the site. In 1979 the Geological Society of Australia (New South Wales Division) nominated the site for an Interim Conservation Order. The order was sought as the site was for sale and possible development. On 12 April 1979 an Interim Conservation Order was placed over the site to provide time for further investigation. On 14 December 1979 a Permanent Conservation Order was placed over the site. The site was transferred onto the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. Description Seaham Quarry is a small, disused shale quarry at Seaham, 14 kilometres northwest of Raymond Terrace. The quarry walls are north facing and one to two metres high. In 1925 a signboard was erected by Edgeworth David proclaiming the area is to be "preserved in perpetuity". The varved sediments in the Seaham Quarry belong to the Upper Carboniferous Seaham Formation, equivalent to the Main Glacial Beds of Osborne (1922). In the Seaham area the formation consists of 600mm of tillite, varved shale, aqueo-glacial conglomerate, tuffaceous sandstone, and mudstone. Osborne (1925) recognised three tillite and three varved shale horizons, of which that exposed in the quarry is the lower-most and thickest. Crowell and Frakes (1971, p. 137) described the appearance of the strata in the quarry as follows: "Laminated clay-shale layers, from 5 mm to 10 cm are separated by thinner fine-sandstone layers, from a few millimetres to a centimetre in thickness. Many thin sandstone units are graded, and locally display starved ripples with shapes and internal cross-laminations indicating the sense