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Geology Of The Isle Of Wight
The geology of the Isle of Wight is dominated by sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous and Paleogene age. This sequence was affected by the late stages of the Alpine Orogeny, forming the Isle of Wight monocline, the cause of the steeply-dipping outcrops of the Chalk Group and overlying Paleogene strata seen at The Needles, Alum Bay and Whitecliff Bay. Pre-Cretaceous Rocks of Devonian, Triassic and Jurassic age are known to be present in the subsurface of the island from boreholes and interpreted seismic reflection profiles. Up to 389 m of presumed Devonian sedimentary rocks been proved by six boreholes drilled on the island, consisting of claystone, siltstone, sandstone and quartzite, similar in type to other dated Devonian sequences. A nearly full Triassic succession has been drilled, reaching a maximum thickness of 450 m. Sandstones of the Sherwood Sandstone Group are overlain by claystones and siltstones of the Mercia Mudstone Group and limestones of the Penarth Group. A complete Jur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sherwood Sandstone Group
The Sherwood Sandstone Group is a Triassic lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) which is widespread in Britain, especially in the English Midlands. The name is derived from Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire which is underlain by rocks of this age. It has economic importance as the reservoir of the Morecambe Bay gas field, the second largest gas field in the UK. Geographical extent These rocks are found in northwest England as far north as Carlisle (and extending just into Scotland around Annan and Gretna) and in the Vale of Eden and then extending down the Cumbrian coast into Lancashire and Cheshire. They are mostly obscured by superficial deposits but the highest coastal cliffs in northwest England at St Bees Head are formed in the St Bees Sandstone, the lowermost formation within the group. In the northeast they extend from Hartlepool south through the Vale of Mowbray and the Vale of York, then south through Nottinghamshire into the English Midlands, though ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brighstone Bay
Brighstone Bay is a bay on the south west coast of the Isle of Wight, England. It lies to the south and west of the village of Brighstone from which it takes its name. It faces south west towards the English Channel, its shoreline is 7 km in length and is gently curving. It stretches from Sudmoor Point in the north west to Artherfield Point in the south east. Several chines, some with streams like the Buddle Brook (Grange Chine) lie along this coast. Like most of the coast along the South-West of the Island, Brighstone Bay is suffering from coastal erosion. Projecting out from this coast is one several ledges along the Back of the Wight. Brighstone Ledge has been the site of many shipwrecks as storms drive ships onto the hidden rocks. J.C Medland, "Shipwrecks of the Wight". Coach House Publications Ltd 2004 The seabed is a mixture of mud, sand and shells. The beach is predominantly shingle. The bay is best viewed from along the Isle of Wight Coastal Path Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compton Bay
Compton Bay is a bay located on the southwest section of the Isle of Wight, England. Its northwestern edge is defined by the distinctive white chalk cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ... of Freshwater Cliff, named after adjacent Freshwater, Isle of Wight, Freshwater Bay, which forms a small cove with the village of Freshwater situated just behind. Its northeastern edge is formed from the soft red and orange lower cretaceous rocks of Brook Bay, which are rapidly eroding. Due to the lack of grazing on the cliffs above the bay, the native chalk ecosystem has thrived. Atop the cliffs, the Island's county flower, the pyramidal orchid, can be found, while the rare Glanville fritillary butterfly also lives in large numbers supported by the native flowers. There are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whale Chine From The Beach
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), and Eschrichtiidae (the grey whale). Odontocetes include the Monodontidae (belugas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Purbeck Group
The Purbeck Group is an Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) in south-east England. The name is derived from the district known as the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset where the strata are exposed in the cliffs west of Swanage. The Purbeck Group is famous for its fossils of reptiles and early mammals. This sequence of rocks has gone by various names in the past including amongst others the Purbeck Beds, Purbeck Formation, Purbeck Limestone Formation and Purbeck Stone. Rocks of this age have in the past been called the Purbeckian stage by European geologists. The Purbeckian corresponds with the Tithonian to Berriasian stages of the internationally used geologic timescale. Outcrops The Purbeck Group outcrops follow the line of the Jurassic outcrop from Dorset, through the Vale of Wardour, Swindon, Garsington, Brill and Aylesbury. In East Sussex, the Purbeck Group outcrops at three locations north and northwest west of Battle, East Suss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portland Group (geology)
The Portland Group (defining the Portlandian) is a Late Jurassic (Tithonian) lithostratigraphy, lithostratigraphic group (stratigraphy), group (a sequence of rock strata) in South East England. The name is derived from the Isle of Portland in Dorset where the stratum, strata are exposed and have been extensively worked. Rocks of this age have in the past been called the Portlandian stage (stratigraphy), stage by geologists, which corresponds with the late Tithonian stage of the internationally used geological timescale. Outcrops The Portland Group crops out in Dorset on the Isle of Portland, on and near the south coast of the Isle of Purbeck and to the north of Weymouth, Dorset, Weymouth. Lithology and stratigraphy The rocks include limestones, Dolomite (mineral), dolomitic sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. It is divided into two formations, the Portland Stone Formation (or 'Portland Limestone Formation') and the underlying Portland Sandstone Formation (or 'Portland Sand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kimmeridge Clay Formation
The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for North Sea oil. The fossil fauna of the Kimmeridge Clay includes turtles, crocodiles, sauropods, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs, as well as a number of invertebrate species. Description Kimmeridge Clay is named after the village of Kimmeridge on the Dorset coast of England, where it is well exposed and forms part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. Onshore, it is of Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) age and outcrops across England, in a band stretching from Dorset in the south-west, north-east to North Yorkshire. Offshore, it extends into the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian Stage) and it is found throughout the Southern, Central and Northern North Sea. The foundations of the Humber Bridge on the southern (Barton) side of the bridge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford Clay Formation
The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specifically, the Callovian and Oxfordian ages, and comprises two main facies. The lower facies comprises the Peterborough Member, a fossiliferous organic-rich mudstone. This facies and its rocks are commonly known as lower Oxford Clay. The upper facies comprises the middle Oxford Clay, the Stewartby Member, and the upper Oxford Clay, the Weymouth Member. The upper facies is a fossil poor assemblage of calcareous mudstones. Oxford Clay appears at the surface around Oxford, Peterborough and Weymouth and is exposed in many quarries around these areas. The top of the Lower Oxford Clay shows a lithological change, where fissile shale changes to grey mudstone. The Middle and Upper Oxford Clays differ slightly, as they are separated by an argillaceou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kellaways Formation
The Kellaways Formation is a geological formation of the Callovian Series from the Jurassic. It is found in the British Isles, immediately above the Great Oolite Series: below the Oxford Clay Formation and above the Cornbrash. It consists of two layers, the Kellaways Sand, a light green-grey clayish silt and sand with layers of sand concretions, overlying the Kellaways Clay, a dark grey plastic fissile clay. They were laid down during the Callovian, offshore from the London-Brabant Island, between 165 and 160 million years ago, in the latitude of the modern Mediterranean Sea, when the structure of Britain was still taking shape. At this stage, the coal swamps of the north-western shore of the island had subsided below the sea so that the Kellaways clay was formed in fairly deep water and the Kellaways sand was blown and washed from what had become the hot desert land. The holotype of the indeterminate eusauropod ''"Ornithopsis" leedsii'' has been recovered from this formation.N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Oolite Group
The Great Oolite Group is a Middle Jurassic stratigraphic unit that outcrops in southern England. It consists of a complex set of marine deposits primarily mudstone and bioclastic ooidal and fine grained limestone, deposited in nearshore to shelf settings. It is exposed at the surface as a variably thick belt extending roughly NE-SW from the coast of Dorset up to the Humber. It is also present at depth in the Weald and Wessex Basins, as well as offshore. Several of the constituent formations, notably the Taynton Limestone Formation and the Forest Marble Formation are notable for their fossil content, including those of dinosaurs and pterosaurs and some of the earliest mammals. Paleofauna * '' Cardiodon rugulosus'' * ''Cetiosaurus oxoniensis'' * '' Eoplophysis vetustus'' (stegosaurid indet) * ''Megalosaurus bucklandii'' * ''Proceratosaurus bradleyi'' * '' Seldsienean megistorhynchus'' See also * List of dinosaur-bearing rock formations ** List of stratigraphic units with fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lias Group
The Lias Group or Lias is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) found in a large area of western Europe, including the British Isles, the North Sea, the Low Countries and the north of Germany. It consists of marine limestones, shales, marls and clays. ''Lias'' is a Middle English term for hard limestone, used in this specific sense by geologists since 1833. In the past, geologists used ''Lias'' not only for the sequence of rock layers, but also for the timespan during which they were formed. It was thus an alternative name for the Early Jurassic epoch of the geologic timescale. It is now more specifically known that the Lias is Rhaetian to Toarcian in age (over a period of 20 million years between ) and thus also includes a part of the Triassic. The use of the name "Lias" for a unit of time is therefore slowly disappearing. Subdivisions In southern England, the Lias Group is often divided into Lower, Middle and Upper subgroups. In Southern England the Lias is d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
