The Palaeogene Beds of South-EastEngland

by DENNIS CURRY

Presidential Address delivered 5 March 1965

1. INTRODUCfION

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS of England occur in two relatively small synclinalareas. The first includes the lower parts of the valley and the fringes of theestuary of the River Thames and is referred to as the London (Tertiary)Basin . The second is bounded by a triangle with corners at Dorchester,Salisbury and Worthing, including the northern half of the Isle of Wight,and is known as the Hampshire (Tertiary) Basin. In addition, there are bedsof small extent and probably of Palaeogene age in the south-west of Eng­land, but these will not be considered here. They include the Bovey Beds,of Bovey Tracey, and other deposits at Haldon, Petrockstow and Marland,all in Devon. The London and Hampshire Basins are small portions of amuch larger depositional basin, the Anglo-Paris-Belgian Basin. They areareas of present occurrence and we kno w of no evidence of any barrierbetween the London and Hampshire areas during any part of Palaeogenetimes.

2. mSTORICAL SURVEY:EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES

The earliest work still of great importance to the study of Tertiarygeology in England is the monograph by Solander (in Brander, 1766) of acollection of the fossils of the cliffs near Hordwell [Barton], contained inthe then newly formed British Museum . This contains descriptions andexcellent figures of over a hundred species of fossils, mostly molluscs,nearly all being readily recognisable. Solander's work was one of the veryfirst to use the Linnaean system, established in 1758, and so all but a veryfew of the specific names he created are valid and still in general use.

The pioneer work of William Smith in English stratigraphy was notpublished until over forty years later. One of Smith's important datumlines was of course the Chalk, and in his works we find references to the'Strata lying above the Chalk', in which he included what are now calledthe Woolwich and Reading Beds, the London Clay and the East AnglianCrags.

The first subdivision of the English Lower Tertiaries was carried out byWebster, in 1814, after a study of the magnificent cliff-sections of the Isle

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of Wight. He recognised the presence of alternations of marine and fresh­water formations like those demonstrated by Cuvier and Brongniart toexist above the Chalk near Paris, although his detailed correlations werefaulty in some respects.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it was fashionableto collect interesting or beautiful natural objects and a demand arose formeans of identifying these. The engravers of the time met this demand byproducing hand-coloured plates which they bound up and sold in sets,and the Sowerby family, father and son, played an important part in thistrade. For the palaeontologist, their Mineral Conchology, publishedbetween 1812 and 1846, will always remain of the first importance. Thispublication describes British fossils of all ages, but Lower Tertiary speciesare especially well-represented. The marine fossils amongst these wererecorded for the most part as occurring in the London Clay, with manyspecies from Highgate, Barton, Stubbington and Bognor (the terms BartonBeds and Bracklesham Beds had not then been proposed).

During the thirty years following the publication of Webster's paper, theEnglish Lower Tertiaries were studied by Lyell, Sedgwick, Bowerbank andMantell, amongst others, but no substantial progress was made in theirsubdivision and correlation until the year 1846, when Joseph Prestwichpublished the first of a remarkable series of papers in the Quarterly Journalof the Geological Society. Between 1846 and 1857 he contributed no lessthan eleven of these, nine on the succession of Eocene beds in Britain andtwo on their relations to similar beds in Belgium and the Paris Basin.These papers occupy a total of over three hundred pages of the Journal andthey are packed with facts and ideas, most of which are still important tothe study of the English Lower Tertiaries.

In his first paper Prestwich was clearly much influenced by his pre­decessors, but he did recognise two distinct faunas within what had pre­viously been called the London Clay Formation. The earlier of thesefaunas, found at Bognor, around London, and near the base of theTertiaries at Whitecliff and Alum Bays, characterised what he called theBognor Beds. The later fauna, of Bracklesham and Barton and the higherparts of the marine sequence at Whitecliff and Alum Bays, was referred tothe London Clay Formation. Prestwich must have realised almost at oncethat his new London Clay Formation was a misnomer, for in a paper in1847 (1847a) he abandoned his term Bogner Beds in favour of LondonClay and introduced the names Bracklesham Sands and Barton Beds,although he did not differentiate clearly between these. In a second paper(1847b) he subdivided the Bagshot sands and correctly correlated thesewith the Bracklesham Beds. He next turned his attention to the beds belowthe London Clay and wrote of these in a series of three papers. The first(1850) dealt with the Basement Beds of the London Clay. In the second

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 153

(1852) he described and named the Thanet Sands. In the third (1854a) herecognised the separate entities we now know as the Woolwich Beds andReading Beds and demonstrated that they are of the same age. In otherpapers he contrasted (1854c) the faunas ofthe London Clay and Brackles­ham Beds, and attempted (1854b) a zonal subdivision of the London Clay.

The subdivision of the English Lower Tertiaries into the lithologicalunits which are now generally recognised was soon completed. In 1853,Forbes created the terms Headon, Osborne, Bembridge and Hempstead[Hamstead] Beds; in 1866, Whitaker removed from the London ClayBasement Beds a unit which he called the Oldhaven Beds. Other works inthe late nineteenth century which are important stratigraphically are thoseby Fisher (1862) on the distribution and subdivisions of the BrackleshamBeds, and by Gardner, Keeping and Monckton (1888) on the BartonBeds. Important publications by the Geological Survey at this period aretwo memoirs on the London Basin (Whitaker, 1872, 1889), and three onthe Isle of Wight, the last (Reid & Strahan, 1889) of which in particularcontains an immense amount of detail.

Concurrently with the work in stratigraphy there was great activity inpalaeontology. The Palaeontographical Society had been founded in 1847,and already in 1852 it had over 700 members. Monographs had beenpublished on the Eocene corals, echinoderms, brachiopods and cephalo­pods, while a start had been made on the other molluscs. The ostracodswere published in 1857,with a supplement in 1889.The reptiles and plantswere also dealt with. The work on molluscs, of which nearly 2000 specieshave been recognised, was a huge task and was abandoned, less than halfcomplete, in 1877. Many new species of fossils were published in Dixon'sGeology of Sussex (1850), and others in the first Survey memoir (Forbes,1856)on the Isle of Wight. An important work of reference is the catalogueby R. B. Newton (1891) of the Edwards collection of molluscs in theBritish Museum.

3. HISTORICAL SURVEY: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Before the tum of the century it seems that some kind of blight hadsettled on researches into the English Lower Tertiaries. The generation ofcurio collectors had passed away, and with them the need of popular bookswhich would describe their treasures and of professional collectors whowould collect them. Most of the workers on the Tertiaries in the nine­teenth century had been amateurs; the increasing body of professionalswho followed them it seems regarded the Tertiaries with their apparentlack of complication as of far less interest than rocks in the remoter westand north of the British Isles. Whatever the reasons, little that was newwas published on the English Lower Tertiaries in the twenty years before

PROC. GEOL. ASSOC., VOL. 76, PART 2, 1965 11

154 DENNIS CURRY

the First World War. Then, in 1916, Boswell took as a subject for a LondonPh.D. thesis the Eocene beds of northern Essex and Suffolk. He produceda work of great competence in which much reliance was placed on struc­ture patterns and on sedimentary petrology. Further contributions fromLondon University soon followed. Stamp in 1921 compared the lowestTertiaries of England and the Paris Basin and developed Prestwich's idea(1852, 256-61) of a 'Wealden Island'. Wooldridge wrote on the BagshotBeds of Essex (1924) and studied the structural history of the LondonBasin (1923, 1926).

At about this time there appeared the first publications of ArthurWrigley and A. G. Davis. Both were amateurs, without formal training,but with a passionate devotion to the study of geology. To this love ofgeology, Wrigley added his professional skill as a draughtsman and anoriginal and sceptical brain. Davis was of an inventive tum of mind anddeveloped techniques, based on the use of sieve and microscope, which heused to amass a large collection of the smaller Tertiary fossils, includingmany new to science. They worked closely together, Wrigley studying themolluscs and Davis the remainder of any particular fauna.

The English Lower Tertiary molluscs, apart from short contributions byR. B. Newton (1894, 1895), had remained untouched since the death ofS. V. Wood in 1876. Wrigley set himself the task of dealing with thosegroups not previously monographed and wrote a series of papers for theProceedings of the Malacological Society (1921-49), which are a model oftheir kind. Davis wrote on the polyzoa (1934) and, with H. D. Thomas,announced (1949) the first discovery in England of a fossil pterobranch. Inaddition, in collaboration with Wrigley, he described (1934) an importantfauna in the Bracklesham Beds at Southampton and announced (1937) thediscovery for the first time in England of beds containing Nummulitesplanulatus. Two other amateurs with a lifelong interest in their localgeology are the late E. St. John Burton, who published accounts of theBarton Beds (1929, 1933), and E. M. Venables who has been responsible(1929, 1963) for detailed surveys of the London Clay around Bognor.

A most important study has been that of Miss M. E. J. Chandler, on theplants, especially the seeds, of the Lower Tertiaries. Working in col­laboration with Mrs. Reid (1933) or, more recently, alone (1925-63), shehas collected assiduously and described and analysed carefully a largeamount of material. As a result we now have a good knowledge of theEnglish Palaeogene floras and can draw useful climatic conclusions fromthese. Amongst other recent palaeontological studies are notes on bivalveMollusca by Tremlett (1950, 1951); on ostracods and Foraminifera fromthe London Clay by Bowen (1953, 1954), on Foraminifera from theThanet Beds by Haynes (1956-8), and from the Oligocene by Bhatia(1955); on fish otoliths by Stinton (1956); on brachiopods by Muir-Wood

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 155

(1928, 1933, 1938, 1939) and Elliott (1938, 1954, 1955); on cirripedes byWithers (1953); and on nummulites (1937) and cephalopods (1955) byCurry.

Two regional memoirs of the Geological Survey are of more than usualimportance to Palaeogene geology; they are those on the Isle of Wight(White, 1921) and the Isle of Purbeck (Arkell, 1947). There are manyreferences and much summarised information in that part of the LexiqueStratigraphique International which deals with the Palaeogene of theUnited Kingdom.

4. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF mE PALAEOGENE BEDS OFSOUm-EAST ENGLAND

(a) The Thanet Beds

The oldest Tertiary beds in the south-east of England are the ThanetBeds, which occur within a triangular area bounded by Ramsgate, Epsomand Ipswich. They rest on various Zones of the Upper Chalk, from cor­anguinum to mucronata. It is clear that the junction is an unconformableone, and reference to Continental successions reveals that a large time-gapoccurred between the two deposits, in which the whole of the Maestrichtianand Danian stages, and more, were laid down elsewhere, and during whichgreat faunal changes took place. About fifteen million years must haveelapsed between the deposition of the topmost Chalk at Ramsgate andthat of the overlying Thanet Base-Bed. During this period, Chalk at leastto the level of the lower part of the Maestrichtian stage was laid down oversouth-eastern England, under parts of the North Sea and most of theEnglish Channel. Uplift followed which was especially concentrated in thearea of the London Palaeozoic platform. Erosion then removed more than500 feet of Chalk over the greater part of the London Basin. The pene­planation of the Chalk which resulted was almost certainly carried out inpart by marine action. Almost everywhere the Palaeogene beds im­mediately overlying the Chalk contain glauconite and/or marine fossils, orthe Chalk surface is bored by what are believed to have been marineorganisms.

The Thanet Beds are essentially glauconitic fine sands, with seams ofclay, which become less clayey from east to west. They thin out in thesame direction from a maximum of about 120 feet, tapering away to afeather-edge just to the west of London. Solid fossils are confined to theeastern part and the Foraminifera have recently been the subject of ex­haustive studies by Haynes. On the basis of these he has concluded (1958,57,58) that the Thanet Beds were laid down in a cool sea which attained amaximum depth of about fifty metres but was for the most part muchshallower than this. The molluscs are abundant, though poorly preserved,

156 DENNIS CURRY

and Wrigley (1949,45) noted the presence of genera suggesting cold water,though he did observe that certain genera which occur in the Paris Basinat this level indicate rather warm water. Calcareous algae, found in thehighest Thanet Beds at Bishopstone Gap, also suggest warm, shallowwater.

(b) The Woolwichand Reading Beds

The Thanet Beds are succeeded by the complex series of sands and clayswhich we know as the Woolwich and Reading Beds (Fig. 1). These arevariable in thickness, but do not exceed about 120feet. The lowest memberof the series almost everywhere is a glauconitic pebbly marine sand which,when fossiliferous, commonly contains Ostrea bellovacina. This is knownas the Woolwich or Reading Bottom Bed, as appropriate. In East Kent thewhole series is of marine sands and was called by E. I. White (1931,10) theBishopstone Beds, a name which unfortunately is preoccupied (A. M.Davies, 1899. Proc. Geol. Ass., Lond., 16, 45). Gurr has recently (1962)described a fish fauna from the base of these beds. White's BishopstoneBeds resemble both in lithology and fauna the Thanet Beds below andWrigley (1949) has argued that the Thanet and Woolwich and ReadingBeds might well be combined and treated as one group.

In north-west Kent the Bishopstone facies is confined to a few feet ofsand at the base of the series and a new facies appears above; one of darkestuarine clays and sands in which Corbicula and Brotia are the dominantmolluscs, though oyster beds and limestone with Viviparus also occur.This is the typical facies of the Woolwich Beds. Outside the London areasmall outliers of typical Woolwich clays occur at Newhaven in Sussex, andalso near Boulogne, St. Valery and Dieppe in northern France. These areimportant to the consideration of the 'Wealden Island' which will bediscussed later.

In the London Basin to the west of London and throughout the Hamp­shire Basin a third facies takes over, that of the Reading Beds. This is pre­dominantly of reddish, grey and green pure clays, with lenticular beds ofsand. It is characteristically unfossiliferous, though remains of leaves havebeen found at Harefield (51/049899)and near Reading. Hawkins (1946)hasgiven a vivid account of the conditions under which the Reading Beds mayhave been deposited. He postulates a low-lying country of freshwatermarshes interspersed with dunes and temporary pools. Possibly the climatewas semi-arid and much of the sediment wind-borne, the finer dust becom­ing trapped in pools and the coarser material migrating slowly in dunes,which give evidence of movement from a westerly direction. The picturepresented by the Woolwich and Reading series as a whole is thus of ashallow sea to the east, fringed by brackish mud-flats which stretched fromLondon well into the Paris Basin, and these backed by a lowland country

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158 DENNIS CURRY

stretching in a great arc to the north-west of London from Suffolk toHampshire and thence into the Channel.

(c) The Oldhaven and Blackheath Beds

Resting on the Woolwich and Reading Beds to the east of GreaterLondon is another variable series of beds, this time of sands with subordi­nate beds of flint pebbles. These are the Blackheath and Oldhaven Beds.They are very thin and perhaps do not rank in importance with the bedsabove and below. They are readily mapped, however, and they have arather rich fauna with a number of peculiar species, so it is convenient toretain them as a separate entity. Like the beds below, they are more marineto the east, and at Bishopstone Gap (61/206687) (formerly known asOldhaven Gap), near Herne Bay, they comprise about twenty feet ofcurrent-bedded fine sand with seams of molluscs in a fauna which, thoughmarine, is that of an estuary rather than of an open sea. The facies atBishopstone, referred to as the Oldhaven Beds, is traceable westwardsalong the southern edge of the London Basin without marked changeuntil, near Chatham, molluscs typical of brackish water such as Brotia andCorbicula and even some freshwater forms appear in the fauna. As Wrigley(in White, 1931) has stressed, the proportion of specimens of brackish­water species is seen to rise as more and more westerly beds are exam­ined. At the western limit of their range the sands contain quantities ofpebbles, which are exclusively of flint, except for rare Tertiary sandstone.This is the facies known as the Blackheath Beds. The Blackheath Beds haveyielded a rather rich vertebrate fauna which has been described by White(1931).

The Blackheath Beds at Plumstead, Erith and Elmstead have been seento flll deep, broad channels in the sands and clays of the Woolwich Bedsbelow, and to rest in places on the Woolwich Bottom Bed. Farther souththe Blackheath Beds are seen in outliers to rest directly on the Chalk.Stamp (1921) has interpreted this as indicating general overlap of theBlackheath Beds southwards over the Woolwich and Thanet Beds. How­ever, an alternative theory put forward by Leach (1909, 246) is quiteattractive. This regards the Blackheath outliers as the remains of exception­ally deep channels which penetrated as far as the Chalk. In consideringthese theories one may note that the faunas indicate that we are dealingwith the landward end of an estuarine complex, and that, in such complexeslarge areas of mud-flats are commonly penetrated by networks of tidaldrainage-channels, which are characteristically sand- and gravel-filled.Parts of these channels may be much over-deepened compared withsurrounding areas. In the west of the Solent, for example, there is an areaover thirty fathoms (55 m.) deep; much deeper than the open sea to theeast and west of the Isle of Wight. At Noman Fort (40/638939), off Spit-

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH·EAST ENGLAND 159

head, ninety feet of Recent sand and shingle with marine shells was pene­trated in a search for fresh water. Reverting to the Blackheath Beds, ifthese did penetrate to the Chalk through a blanket of Woolwich clays, theywould resist subsequent subaerial erosion much more effectively than theclays around and might then present the appearance of outliers of trans­gressive beds.

As already mentioned, the Blackheath and Oldhaven Beds in the easternpart of their range contain many estuarine and some freshwater molluscs.No doubt some of these are derived from the Woolwich Beds, but thissource can only account for a proportion of the estuarine element. Stamppointed out (1921, 98) that a few species ('Cyrena' tellinella, for example)are rare or absent in the Woolwich Beds, but common in the BlackheathBeds and not known from the succeeding London Gay. This fact is im­portant in deciding whether the Blackheath and Oldhaven Beds should betreated as a separate entity or should be linked with those above or below.

(d) The London Clay

The Oldhaven and Blackheath Beds, where they occur, and the ReadingBeds elsewhere, are overlain by the London Clay. In its unweathered statethis is a dark brownish or bluish grey marine clay which seldom showsobvious macrostructure. As far as is known, it originally extended overthe whole of south-east England, south-east of a line approximately fromNorwich to Dorchester. It has also been recorded in the central EnglishChannel, and equivalent beds, similar in lithology and fauna, extendthrough northernmost France into the Low Countries and north-westGermany. It was clearly formed in a large sea, which, near London, was attimes over 100 fathoms (180 rn.) deep.

The London Clay is thickest to the east of London, where it attains athickness of 550 feet, and it thins progressively to the west, being about300 feet thick near Portsmouth and 100 feet or so in north-west Hampshireand Dorset (see Figs. 1 and 3). It is not a pure clay, but contains varyingand sometimes large quantities of silt or fine sand. The sandy beds becomemore prominent westwards, while the middle beds at any point are as arule less sandy than those at the top and bottom of the series.

The lowest few feet of the London Clay are referred to as the LondonGay Basement Bed and are almost invariably sandy and glauconitic, withaccumulations of marine molluscs, especially bivalves such as Pitar andDosiniopsis. There is a restricted foraminiferal fauna in which Protel­phidium and polymorphinids are prominent, both molluscs and micro­fossils suggesting deposition in shallow sea-water. No estuarine or fresh­water species are known from these beds. The whole pattern of occurrenceof the London Clay suggests that after Blackheath times there was amarine transgression on a wide front from the east over the whole of the

160 DENNIS CURRY

area formerly occupied by the Lower London Tertiaries, accompanied bya slow and continued subsidence which was greatest in the area of theThames Estuary.

It has been suggested (Stamp 1921, 73) that the Oldhaven and Black­heath Beds and the London Clay Basement Bed are the products of asingle transgression. This seems unlikely because, firstly, beds of typicalLondon Clay Basement Bed facies overlie Blackheath Beds in places(Swanscombe; Stamp, 1921, 62) and, secondly, the east-west faunalpattern of the Oldhaven-Blackheath Beds would be expected to projectwestwards from London into a freshwater one, rather than the marine typeactually found in the London Clay Basement Bed.

In a marine transgression such as that of the London Clay it is custom­arily assumed that the basement beds must be diachronous. Diachronismhas not yet been proved, however, nor is it likely to be until a reliablemethod of zoning the London Clay has been established. Ever since thetime of Wetherell, workers on the London Clay have studied this problem,without any real success. Wrigley (1924, 1940) recognised five divisionson faunal grounds in the London area, but was not able to extend thesedivisions to Hampshire or even to the excellent section at Sheppey. Bowen,having studied the ostracods and Foraminifera of the London Clay, con­cluded that neither group yielded any information of value for zoningpurposes.

No doubt a faunal basis for zoning will ultimately be found. In themeantime, it is certain that some of the faunal patterns to be observed inthe London Clay are facies-controlled. It may be noted, for example, thatestuarine or freshwater molluscs are almost unknown; one specimen onlyof Ellobium (a gastropod whose shell is light and has a constricted apertureand might well float a long distance) has been recorded. Foraminifera arerather abundant in the London Clay and the assemblages vary bothvertically and laterally in a bewildering fashion. Prestwich, in 1847 (374),noted that in the London area the macrofauna of the middle part of theLondon Clay is predominantly a deep-water one. The Foraminifera con­firm this. Protelphidium and polymorphinids are now rare and there aremany nodosariids present. Globigerina occurs commonly and may com­prise 30%of all individuals in some samples. This association suggests adepth of the order of 100-200fathoms (180-360 m.). With these Foramini­fera occur crinoids and Terebratulina, with two species of the bivalveThyasira and one of the gastropod Cocculina, all of which suggest ratherdeep water. Arctica and Astarte, both now with a predominantly borealdistribution, are rather characteristic of the more clayey beds of the Lon­don Clay and these also may indicate cold (because deep) water.

As already stated the beds near the top of the London Clay in theLondon area and throughout in the Hampshire Basin are more sandy, and

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 161

in these beds the molluscan faunas do not, for the most part, include thebivalves just mentioned, but species of Glycymeris, Pitar, Nemocardium and(locally) Dosiniopsis recall the fauna of the London Clay Basement Bed.The Foraminiferal fauna also now contains Protelphidium and otherindicators of shallow water.

The London Clay has yielded a very large flora, comprising over 500species, mostly of fruits and seeds. Chandler has concluded (1961, 21) thatthey were derived from a tropical rainforest in an area of heavy rainfall andhigh temperature (over 70° F.). These conclusions can be reconciled withthe presence of cold-water elements amongst the marine fauna. By analogywith present-day conditions sea-water temperature at 200 fathoms depthmight be no more than 50° F. if the mean surface temperature were 70° F.

An important feature of the London Clay is its uniform lithology.Materials coarser than fine sand grade are characteristically absent; innearly all samples the only clastic materials which fail to pass a lOO-meshsieve are rare mica-flakes. In this respect it resembles the Thanet Beds andcontrasts sharply with the Bracklesham Beds, which are notably morecoarse-grained. This uniformity and fineness of grain suggest that evennear the margin of the outcrop we are still at some distance from land and,further, that the London Clay sea was free from strong currents. Theseconclusions might seem to be inconsistent with the presence of seeds insuch variety. However, Reid & Chandler (1933, 20) refer to an account byMoseley of an occasion on which H.M.S. Challenger encountered greatquantities of seeds of about fifty species with floating wood in the neigh­bourhood of New Guinea at a distance of sixty miles from land. Theycomment that this reads like an authentic record of the circumstances oforigin of the flora of the London Clay.

Davis & Elliott (1958, 255-77), in a well-documented and closelyreasoned study, have stated that the London Clay sea was almost land­locked, with an opening to the north, between Scotland and Scandinavia.This is of course consistent with the somewhat cold-water aspect of themarine fauna. They also suggest (p.271) that a connection was openedsouth-westwards to the Tethys about half-way through London Claytimes and that this was responsible for the introduction of many newmarine genera which spread westwards from the Hampshire Basin to arrivein the London area in late London Clay times. I personally believe that thissouthern connection occurred later. In the central English Channel (King,1954; Curry, 1962b) the presence of typical Reading Beds indicates a landarea at that time. These are succeeded by London Clay of Isle of Wightand Dorset types, and the London Clay by Bracklesham Beds, which aremore coarse-grained, contain genera of Foraminifera (Nummulites,Alveolina, Discocyclina) new to the area and also abundant derivedForaminifera of Upper Chalk or Danian age. When the south-westerly

162 DENNIS CURRY

barrier was breached, the London Clay sea would have been converted fromone like the Baltic, with small tides, into something more like the presentNorth Sea. One would then expect strong tides, with heavy marine erosionof the breached area. There should then be a change to a coarser and morevariable lithology with evidences of erosion, such as derived fossils. Thebest evidence for this change is, it seems, to be seen in the lower part of theBracklesharn Beds, and I believe that it was then that the connection withthe south-west was made.

The lowest fifty feet of the London Clay of the London area immediatelyabove the basement bed (and sporadically at higher levels) has yielded nofossils other than abundant diatoms and some Radiolaria. In such bedsunbored wood may occur. These facts suggest the existence from time totime of foul bottom conditions, with organisms confined to a thin sheet ofwater at the surface of the sea.

(e) The Wealden Island

Prestwich (1852, 256-61) noted a substantial thinning of the Chalkunderlying the Palaeogene along a north-south line from Saffron Waldento the north Downs, and concluded that this was due to post-depositionaldenudation which had acted more strongly in the south. He observed thatif this trend continued the Chalk must be completely absent in the centreof the Weald and, further, that beds lower in the Cretaceous might havebeen exposed there in early Palaeogene times. He then postulated an islandor shoal approximately in the position of the present Weald, which ex­tended towards Boulogne in Northern France, and which was, he surmised,the source of the abundant flint pebbles of the Blackheath Beds. Sub­sequent authors have used this concept to explain features which theyregard as southward overstep of the Thanet and Woolwich Beds in northKent, and southerly thinning of the Thanet Beds, Woolwich Beds andLondon Clay in the same area (cf. Stamp, 1921, 71-3).

However, Wrigley (1940, 243), and Davis & Elliott (1958, 271) saw noevidence for a Wealden Island in London Clay times and Wrigley gavegood reasons for deriving the pebbles which occur within the London Clayfrom the south-west [more probably the west] and not from any part of thearea of the present Weald.

It has already been said that typical Woolwich Beds occur at Newhavenand on the French coast immediately opposite, near Dieppe, The greyestuarine clays of Woolwich, Newhaven and Dieppe are astonishinglyalike both in lithology and fauna, which would be very unlikely if a largeisland (cf. Stamp, 1921, pI.3) separated Woolwich from Newhaven at thistime.

Much is now known of the varying thickness and the pattern of denuda-

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 163

tion of the Chalk and it is clear that Prestwich's deductions about theChalk surface were based on insufficient evidence. So far as we canascertain from the occurrence of the various Chalk zones immediatelybelow the Palaeogene (see Fig. 2 and compare with Wooldridge & Linton,1938,280) there is no indication of any pre-Upper Tertiary uplift which isspecifically associated with the area of the present Weald (for the purposeof this statement records of cortestudinarium Chalk near Warlingham andplanus Chalk at Knockmill, Kent, each below Lower Tertiary beds, are

50km

,,-,-,-=.:..:.:..-=o.==.:c....:::.u:..:.n.=.de=.;r,-,Iyin9 Pa Iaeogenein sout h-eust England.

marsupites+

Chalk Zones

+ Locolities providing information.Boundarv between Zones

.......... well authenticated

..... uncertain

Fig. 2. Zones of Chalk which immediately underlie the Palaeogene beds in SE. Englandand N. France. Compiled from various printed sources with the help (here gratefullyacknowledged) of Mr. N. B. Peake

164 DENNIS CURRY

disregarded because it is possible that the contacts in these cases are notoriginal, but have been modified by solution). If Leach's hypothesis of thedepth of channelling of the Blackheath Beds is accepted, there is no need topostulate a Wealden Island even to provide the Blackheath flints, and theidea of the Wealden Island can then be discarded completely. We have not,of course, sufficient evidence at the moment to declare that the WealdenIsland is a myth, but it seems that its former existence should, at least, betreated as not proved.

(f) The Bracklesham and Bagsbot Beds

(i) London Basin and Eastern Part ofHampshire Basin. Towards the endof London Clay times the sea shallowed and the sedimentary record is oflaminated sands or pure sands, more or less false-bedded (Claygate Beds,Lower Bagshot Beds (part». The conditions under which these have beendeposited from place to place have been disputed as there is very littlefossil evidence bearing on the question. Wooldridge well summarised thisuncertainty when he noted (1924, 367) that of two Survey geologists whoworked independently in Hampshire, Reid consistently dealt with theLower Bagshot Beds as fluviatile, while White regarded them as marine.

A much clearer picture emerges when the overlying series is considered.This is best studied in the Isle of Wight and the neighbouring coast of themainland between Selsey and Studland (Fig. 3). At Bracklesham Bay inSussex and Whitecliff Bay at the east end of the Isle of Wight, nearly sixhundred feet of marine glauconitic sandy clays, the Bracklesham Beds,rest on a sandy upward prolongation of the London Clay. The Brackles­ham Beds of the type area were described by Fisher in 1862, who gave an

. account of the well-marked succession of faunas which they display.Nummulites makes its first appearance in England in the BrackleshamBeds, which contain a succession of species which can be matched inBelgium and the Paris Basin. The significance of N. laevigatus for cor­relation was early recognised by Prestwich (l847b, 389), but use of theother species was hindered by incorrect determinations. However, in 1937Curry resolved the confusion which had existed over the use of the nameN. elegans, and established that N. variolarius does not occur in the BartonBeds. In the same year Wrigley & Davis announced the important dis­covery of N. planulatus in the lowest part of the Bracklesham Beds. Therange and succession of nummulite species then established has beenmodified only slightly by the recent discovery (Curry, 1962a) that theranges of N. laevigatus and N. variolarius overlap.

The Bracklesham Beds have yielded a rich molluscan fauna of about 500species and this indicates different conditions of deposition from those of

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 165

the London Clay. About thirty new genera appear; some, like Chama.tArea (s.s.), Spondylus, Plieatula, are attached forms indicating shallow,clear water; others, Conus, 1 Mitra,l Oliva, Marginelia.s suggest thatthis water was very warm, At the same time, cold water indicators (Aretiea,Astarte, Thyasira, Aporrhais) found in parts of the London Clay are absent.

Except for the nummulites, Foraminifera are not common and at mosthorizons suggest near-land conditions and a mobile sea-bottom. Onehorizon near the top of the series, however, has quite different characters.This comprises Fisher Beds 21 and 22 at Selseyand their lateral equivalents.At this level a rich fauna of over 100 species is present, which includesmany miliolids and other forms indicating shallow clear water. Associatedis a fauna rich in attached Polyzoa and rock- and seaweed-haunting smallmolluscs, which are rare or absent at other horizons. What may be thegrass-wrack Posidonia also occurs, the picture evoked being that of thepresent-day sea-meadows of the Mediterranean.

Typical Bracklesham Beds can be traced from the type area to theneighbourhood ofBramshaw in the New Forest. North-east from here theyare not seen until the London Basin is reached. There their lateral equiva­lents, as Prestwich (1847b)recognised, are to be found in the Bagshot Beds.The Bagshot Beds of the London Basin are essentially a series of marinesands with subordinate clayey bands, and are so permeable that for themost part fossils are found only in the form of moulds. However, Prestwichwas able to recognise Nummulites laevigatus in the Middle Bagshot Beds,and so to link these with the middle part of the Bracklesham Beds. Gardner,Keeping & Monckton (1888, 616-18) studied the fauna of the UpperBagshot Beds at Tunnel Hill (41/9155), near Farnborough, and concludedthat it is most like that of the lower parts of the Barton Beds. In my opinion,however, the Tunnel Hill fauna is most like that of Huntingbridge (40/251143), in the New Forest, and is thus of Upper Bracklesham age.

In 1955, Hawkins reported on a series of boreholes at Enborne, nearNewbury. Near the top of one of these was a glauconitic sand withNummulites laevigatus and a molluscan fauna which closely resembles thatof Fisher Beds VI and VII at Whitecliff Bay and is clearly of middleBracklesham age. Below were III feet of beds allocated to the [Lower]Bagshot Beds, resting on London Clay. In the Lower Bagshot sequence is ahard calcareous rock with a small variety of Venericardia planicosta such asoccurs in the lower (Cuisian) part of the Bracklesham Beds (Fisher Bed IV)of Whitecliff Bay. On the basis of this discovery he equated his [Lower]Bagshot Beds with the lowest Bracklesham Beds.

Thus each division of the Bagshot Beds of the Bagshot area has now beencorrelated with a corresponding part of the type Bracklesham Beds. It is,however, still desirable to keep in use the term Bagshot Beds, at least in the

1 Recorded very rarely from the London Clay.

166 DENNIS CURRY

London Basin. The alternative ofusing Lower, Middle and Upper Brackles­ham Beds implies a precision in correlation which does not yet exist. Thepractice of using the terms Bagshot Beds, Bracklesham Beds and BartonBeds for the successive divisions of the Bagshot Beds in the London Basinis misleading and inaccurate and ought not to be continued.

(ii) Western Part of the Hampshire Basin. If one attempts to trace theBracklesham Beds westwards from Bracklesham difficulties soon arise.The section at Whitecliff Bay, eleven miles away, can be correlated almostbed for bed with that at Bracklesham. At Alum Bay, a further twentymiles to the west, however, the aspect of the beds between the LondonClay and Barton Beds has changed completely. The sequence of marinesandy clays is replaced by a series ofalmost identical thickness composed ofbeds of continental aspect, in which traces of marine influences are noteasy to find. Fortunately two brickyards, at Gunville (40/479886) and EastAfton (40/369863), have provided (Curry, 1942) bridging information, anda reconstruction of the relations between the various sections is included atFig. 3.

The continental facies of the Bracklesham Beds, the lower part known asBagshot Beds and the higher as Bournemouth Beds, is well developed inthe south-west of the Hampshire Basin, where it includes thick. beds ofpipeclay of some economic importance. In Dorset the Bagshot Beds over­lap the London Clay and Reading Beds on to the Chalk. In this area theycontain quantities of pebbles, including quartz, Cornish rocks and silicifiedPurbeck chert (Arkell, 1947,229,231). These last raise serious problems inpalaeogeographical reconstructions as it seems that all possible sources ofsupply should have been blanketed by Upper Cretaceous beds. There is noevidence in the Palaeogene of the Isle of Wight of premonitory movementsalong the main Isle of Wight fold axis, and none of the complicated seriesof tectonic disturbances recognised in the Isle of Purbeck appears to pro­vide a convincing method of supply for these pebbles (cf. Phillips, 1964,401).

(g) The BartonBeds

The shoreline, which stretched north-westwards from the Isle of Wightin Bracklesham times, must later have moved farther to the west or south­west. The Barton Beds succeed the Bracklesham Beds without interruptionat Whitecliff Bay but at Alum Bay there is a basal pebble bed which occursalso at Highcliffe and thickens westwards to form the sand and shinglebanks of the Boscombe Sands. A pebble from the Boscombe Sands hasrecently (Curry, 1964) yielded Upper Maestrichtian Foraminifera; itssource was almost certainly far to the south in the central English Channel.

The main mass of the Barton Beds which succeeds is of marine sands andclays throughout the rather restricted area of its present occurrence. The

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Fig. 3. Facies variation s in the Eocene beds of the Hampshire Basin

&

BagshotBeds

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Bournemouth"Marine"

Beds

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Continell/al infl uence westwards:marine influence eastwards.

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CREECH

168 DENNIS CURRY

fauna is mainly of molluscs, of which about 500 species are known, andindicate a shallow sea, less warm than that of the Bracklesham Beds. Themarine transgression of the Barton Beds was not, it seems, of great extent,because at Barton stray estuarine and freshwater molluscs and quantitiesof seeds occur sporadically in the Lower Barton Beds, but have not beenrecorded farther to the east. This suggests that land was still not far away,perhaps to the south-west.

A succession of faunas can be made out at Barton (Burton, 1929, 1933),and this can be identified wherever the Barton Beds are fossiliferous. It isnot known, however, whether this fact has more than facies significancebecause the faunas of the Barton Beds cannot be matched closely awayfrom the type area. It seems probable that the Barton sea deepened steadilyuntil the upper part of the Middle Barton Beds, after which there was afairly rapid shoaling, associated with the formation of the Chama bed inclear salt-water. From this point the faunas of succeeding beds point to agradual but continuous change in the composition of this sea, from brack­ish towards freshwater, until at the bottom of the Lower Headon Beds,next succeeding, clays with Viviparus and Unio and seeds of freshwaterplants indicate a complete absence of marine influence. In this sequencethere is no suggestion of a receding shoreline and it seems that the Bartonsea gradually silted up and was converted into an area of freshwater lakesand marshes.

(h) The Oligocene Beds (See Fig. 4)

The state of affairs described in the preceding sentence did not lastlong. In Middle Headon times the sea invaded our area once more,apparently from the north or north-east, and ravined to some extent thefreshwater beds just laid down. In this sea were formed the BrockenhurstBeds, known to the north-east of a line approximately from Fordingbridgeto Ventnor. The Brockenhurst Beds are only a few feet thick but they are ofconsiderable stratigraphical importance. Their fauna is fully marine andincludes corals. The molluscs are matched most closely at Latdorf, nearMecklenberg, and include Arctica and Aporrhais, two cold-water generawhich were last common in England in the London Clay.

Succeeding and perhaps fringing the Brockenhurst Beds is a series ofestuarine beds, of which the' Venus' Bed is the best known. These are veryvariable, laterally and vertically, and pass upwards once more into bedsof continental origin. These continental beds, about 500 feet thick, werelaid down in an area which was subsiding gently. Almost all are water-laid.They include limestones with Lymnaea and Planorbis deposited in stillfreshwater, and silty beds with Viviparus, Erodona and Unio laid down inrunning freshwater, while clays with Corbicula, Melanopsis and Cerithiumindicate deposition in brackish conditions. This is the series of beds which

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130m.

HEAOO~ HILL

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Fig. 4. Lateral variation in the Oligocene beds of the Isle of Wight

WEST

upperlH.adon HillHeadon L!1J1•. s.ton•

Middle :::'.: "V.nus·: B'''d; .Beds

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170 DENNIS CURRY

Forbes subdivided into Upper Headon, Osborne, Bembridge and LowerHamstead Beds. They have, however, an essential unity of lithology andfauna, and this amount of subdivision seems hardly justified.

Within the series two beds are noteworthy, These are the BembridgeLimestone and the Bembridge Oyster Beds immediately overlying it.Unlike others of our Oligocene limestones the Bembridge Limestone isvery persistent, occurring wherever the Bembridge Beds are known. It wasdeposited in still freshwater, as the abundant moulds of Lymnaea andPlanorbis testify, but it also contains land-molluscs, especially nearYarmouth, together with remains of mammals which have been used incross-Channel correlation. At Creechbarrow (30/922824)in Dorset there isan outlier of what is believed to be Bembridge Limestone, which restsunconformably on Bagshot Beds. This occurrence has been discussedexhaustively by Arkell (1947,233--41), who has concluded that it providesevidence of the beginning of the upheaval of the Purbeck Fold. Theeasterly continuation of the Purbeck Fold is of course the Isle of Wightmonocline, but there is no evidence in the Oligocene beds of the Isle ofWight suggesting growth of this monocline during their deposition. IfArkell's conclusion is correct, therefore, it would seem that folding alongthe Isle of Wight-Purbeck axis was initiated in the west and only spreadconsiderably later to the Isle of Wight.

The Bembridge Oyster Beds comprise less than ten feet of sands, packedwith fossils, including barnacles, serpulids and oysters, with a restrictedfauna of other molluscs. They are best developed at Bembridge and thinwestwards, disappearing just east of Hamstead. Like the BrockenhurstBeds, they were deposited in a sea which transgressed from the east ornorth-east. At this horizon, also, the marine beds are soon followed byestuarine ones and these by an essentially freshwater series, the BembridgeMarls and the Lower Hamstead Beds.

The story of the sedimentary sequence of the English Lower Tertiariescomes to an end in the Upper Hamstead Beds with the appearance oncemore of a marine fauna, this time in black and grey clays. These consist ofthe Cerithium Beds below, with a brackish-water fauna, overlain by theCorbula Beds with a fauna which, though restricted, is definitely marine.White suggested (1921, 138) that this is to be regarded as a typical sub­mergence sequence, but it is unique, in the English Palaeogene at least, inthat it includes no basement bed. The change from freshwater throughbrackish to marine conditions must, it seems, have taken place veryquietly indeed.

In this address I have attempted to trace the stratigraphical and faunalsuccession of the English Palaeogene beds and have made some referenceto indications of geographical and climatic change. I have said almostnothing about the history of the Anglo-Paris-Belgian Basin as a whole or

THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 171

about the place which the English strata find within this. I hope, however,to be able to deal with this subject on a future occasion.

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BOWEN, R. N. C. 1953. Ostracoda from the London Clay. Proc. Geol. Ass., Lond., 64,276-92.

----,. 1954. Foraminifera from the London Clay. Proc. Geol. Ass., Lond., 65,125-74.

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BURTON, E. St. J. 1929. The Horizons of Bryozoa (Polyzoa) in the Upper Eocene Bedsof Hampshire. Quart. J. geol. Soc. Lond., 85, 223-39.

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CHANDLER, M. E. J. 1925, 1926. The Upper Eocene Flora of Hordle, Hants. Palaeon­togr. Soc. [Monogr.J.

---. 1960. Plant Remains of the Hengistbury and Barton Beds. Bull. Brit. Mus.(nat. Hist.) Geol., 4, 191-238.

---. 1961, 1962. The Lower Tertiary Floras of Southern England, Brit. Mus.(Nat. Hist.), London.

----,. 1963. Revision of the Oligocene Floras of the Isle of Wight, Bull. Brit. Mus.(nat. Hist.) Geol., 6, 321-84.

CURRY, D. 1937. The English Bartonian Nummulites. Proc. Geol. Ass., Lond., 48,229-46.

---. 1942. The Eocene Succession at Afton Brickyard, I.O.W. Proc. Geol. Ass.,Lond., 53, 88-101.

---. 1955. The Occurrence of the Dibranchiate Cephalopods Vasseuria andBelosepiella in the English Eocene, etc. Proc. malac. Soc. Lond., 31, 111-22.

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172 DENNIS CURRY

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THE PALAEOGENE BEDS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 173

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