II.—On the Age of the Mammalian Rootlet-bed at Kessingland

Abstract

In two papers, by Messrs. S. V. Wood, jun., and F. W. Harmer, recently read, before the Geological Society,—alluded to by Mr. Belt, in the GeologicalMagazine for April last,—this Rootlet-bed at Kessingland has been referred to, and described as an interglacial shallow valley deposit; of an age posterior to the Contorted Drift or Lower Boulder-clay, lying in a trough excavated out of the Chillesford Clay. To make their description more intelligible, the authors (Messrs. Wood and Harmer) subjoin a sketch-map—in their combined, paper “Observations on the Later Tertiary Geology of East Anglia,” read November 8th, 1876—and indicate by a broken line the connexion of this trough with the existing (!) valley systems of the rivers Waveney and Yare—which are here mainly cut out of the Chalky Boulder-clay and Middle Glacial Sands—thus apparently assuming that, before the Middle Glacial Sands and Chalky Boulder-clay were deposited, there were valley systems occupying much the same positions in this immediate locality as there are now, with the addition of the supposed continuation of the interglacial valley of the Waveney in a south-easterly direction to Pakefield and Kessingland.

The mammalian faunas of Pakefield/Kessingland and Corton, Suffolk, UK: evidence for a new temperate episode in the British early Middle Pleistocene

“…The stratigraphy of the cliff exposures at Pakefield and Kessingland was described by Blake (1877Blake ( , 1890 with accompanying detailed sections (Blake, 1884). A century later, detailed descriptions of the stratigraphy, and pollen and plant macrofossil analyses were given by West (1980), although exposures were very poor in the 1960s and 1970s and the sections had to be dug out by hand.…”

“…Table 1 summarises West's (1980, pp. 86-89) account of the sequence, incorporating data from Blake (1877Blake ( , 1890 and observation of the sections available to Spring 2000.…”