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Named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition (VUWAE), 1970-71, after A. Ritchie, curator of fossils at the Australian Museum, Sydney, a member of the VUWAE party that discovered important sites of fossil fish in this Skelton Neve area.
While travelling in Switzerland with Lord Cole (later to be 3rd earl of Enniskillen) they were introduced to Prof. L Agassiz at Neufchâtel, and determined to make a special study of fossil fish.
Within the area are four former flagstone quarries, which despite no longer producing the stones are now noted for the excellent preservation of the fossil fish Osteolepis.
This fossil fish showed new anatomical features in arthrodires, like the well-preserved annular cartilages of the snout, previously inferred to be present by Erik Stensiö of Sweden.
In 1845 he found remains of Holoptychius and forwarded specimens to Miller, and he continued to send the best of his fossil fish to that geologist, and to other geologists after the death of Miller.
The earliest recorded incidence of a Weberian apparatus is from the fossil fish Santanichthys diasii dating from the Early Cretaceous of Northeastern Brazil.