HUNDREDS of millions of years ago it was a tropical reef, now a Storridge quarry is opening to the public as an education and research site.

Visitors to Whitmans Hill Quarry can see fossils and rock formations created when the area was underwater and south of the equator.

The quarry was saved from being used for landfill or off-road vehicles when it was designated a Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Site in 1999.

Now the Earth Heritage Trust has turned it into a Geodiversity project, with £123,000 of funding. Crinoids, corals, brachiopods, trilobites, algae and bryozoans are the main fossils the quarry contains.

Abigail Brown, geodiversity manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust said: "They are all animals that lived in the sea. At that time nothing lived on the land."

She said the quarry contained rocks formed about 425 million years ago in an area of land 15 degrees south of the equator.

"It would have been much more like the Bahamas," she said. "Over millions of years, the area of land moved to its current position in Storridge."

The trust has a 10-year lease on the site, which will be used for a variety of activities. Geologists, local groups and schools will be invited to visit, seminars and workshops will be held and Cradley Heritage Group is researching the quarry's history.

A comprehensive study of the rocks and fossils is under way and the trust plans to create educational resources about the site.

Leominster MP Bill Wiggin will officially launch the project at Cradley Village Hall tomorrow (Saturday) morning. From 2pm, visitors are invited to an exhibition at the hall to find out more about Whitmans Hill quarry and have their own rocks and fossils identified.