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In 1967 the Somerset coastline near Watchet was proposed as the type area of the basal (Planorbis) chronozone of the Hettangian Stage and thus of the Jurassic System. Neither at that time nor subsequently, however, has a type locality and section been nominated from those available in the area. There is urgent need to select a Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Hettangian, and of the Jurassic System. The cliff forming the headland at the west side of St Audrie's Bay, three kilometres east of Watchet, Somerset, is here proposed as the type locality and section, with the base of the Hettangian Stage, at the base of the Planorbis Chronozone, being placed at the horizon currently recognized as that at which ammonites of the genus Psiloceras appear. In this section the base of the Planorbis Chronozone corresponds with the base of the Psiloceras planorbis Biozone. The proposal of this section is conditioned by the availability of comprehensive litho- and biostratigraphic information, and the ability of the section to fulfil International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) requirements for a candidate GSSP.

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The lower part of the post-Variscan succession around Exeter, south Devon, England, comprises some 800 m of breccias, with subordinate sandstones and mudstones, which rest upon Devonian and Carboniferous rocks folded during the Variscan Orogeny and are overlain, disconformably, by the Aylesbeare Mudstone Group (Early Triassic?). These deposits comprise the most westerly of the early post-Variscan successions preserved onshore in northwest Europe and lie to the south of the Variscan Deformation Front; they are assigned to the Exeter Group (new term). Geochronological and palaeontological studies, in conjunction with detailed geological mapping, show that the constituent formations comprise a lower (Late Carboniferous(?)-Early Permian) sequence separated from an upper (Late Permian) sequence by an unconformity which represents an hiatus with a duration of at least 20 m.y. The lower sequence contains volcanic rocks dated at between 291 and 282 Ma (Early Permian) and pre-dates intrusion of the nearby Dartmoor Granite (280 Ma). In the overlying, palynologically-dated, Late Permian sequence, older breccias contain clasts of the Dartmoor Granite aureole rocks, and younger ones contain clasts of that granite. The lower sequence occurs mainly within the Crediton Trough, an east-west trending, partly fault-bounded, sedimentary basin that probably formed by extensional reactivation of a Variscan thrust. Breccias in this sequence formed largely on alluvial fans; the common occurrence of debris flows and a down-fan passage from gravity flows into fluvially deposited sediments is typical of deposition on semi-arid fans. The upper (Late Permian) sequence is more widespread but includes similar deposits overlain, at the top of the Exeter Group, by aeolian dune and interdune deposits. Correlation within the laterally variable facies associations which comprise these sequences has been achieved using a combination of sedimentary facies analysis, sedimentary geochemistry, and petrographical and geochemical clast typing. The stratigraphy revealed within the Exeter Group is broadly comparable with that recognized in the early post-Variscan Rotliegend successions elsewhere in Europe. This similarity may, however, be deceptive; the upper part of the Exeter Group may be coeval with the Zechstein, and apparently correlatable major unconformities in the group and the Rotliegend may reflect different events in the Variscan fold-belt and Variscan Foreland areas, respectively.