Geodiversity in Norfolk

Norfolk has a rich heritage of geology, landscape and landforms, soils and water.

It is valuable in itself, as the physical aspect of the natural world, and for economic, scientific, educational and cultural reasons. It is worth conserving for the benefit of present and future generations of people - and all living things.

Outstanding features of Norfolk's geodiversity

• the North Norfolk coast – an outstanding assemblage of dynamic coastal landforms, including the shingle spit at Blakeney Point, the offshore barrier island at Scolt Head and the dunes at Holkham and Wells-Next-The-Sea.

• Happisburgh Palaeolithic site – a handaxe and other flint tools from sediments of the Cromer Forest-bed Formation dated over 800,000 years ago are the earliest and northernmost evidence of human expansion into Eurasia.

• the Cromer Ridge – an outstanding assemblage of lowland glacial depositional landforms, including the Blakeney Esker and Kelling Heath outwash plain. The internal, geological structure of the Ridge is visible in the cliffs from Weybourne to Mundesley.

• Maastrichtian Chalk at Sidestrand - the youngest Cretaceous Chalk strata in Britain, about 68 million years old.

• the West Runton Elephant – the largest, most complete skeleton of a Steppe Mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) ever found.

• the Lynford Neanderthal site – a rare example of an open-air Middle Palaeolithic site comprising river channel deposits with Mousterian flint tools and the bones of eleven Woolly Mammoths.

• Diss Mere - a natural lake containing the most complete archive of sediments and fossils spanning the last 10,000 years (the Holocene period).

• The Broads – the UK’s largest nationally protected wetland area.

• Hunstanton Cliffs – famous brown, red and white colour-banded cliffs, 100 million years old.

• Sheringham and West Runton beach - the only well-developed Chalk reefs found between North Yorkshire and Kent.

• the Happisburgh Formation – geological evidence of the earliest lowland glaciation in the UK.

• Norton Subcourse quarry – evidence for extinct hippopotamus and hyaena living in a tributary of the ancestral River Thames.

• Shropham Pit – the most prolific findspot in the UK for vertebrate fossils of the Ipswichian (last) interglacial period.

• West Runton cliffs – the most prolific findspot for vertebrate fossils of the Cromerian interglacial, 800,000 years ago.

• lowland periglacial landforms – the best examples of patterned ground (‘Breckland Stripes’) and relict pingos / palsas (ground ice mounds) in the UK are found in West Norfolk.

• Breckland meres – a group of natural lakes developed in Chalk solution hollows (dolines), with distinctively fluctuating water-levels linked with groundwater.

• Pliocene/Pleistocene stratigraphy – Norfolk has contributed many Stage names to the stratigraphy of the UK, including the Ludhamian, Thurnian, Antian, Bramertonian, Pastonian, Beestonian and Cromerian.

Natural landscape character

Geodiversity makes a fundamental contribution to the variety of Norfolk's natural landscapes. They have been described in the ten National Character Area (NCA) profiles for the county. See the NCA map.

Find out more

Find out more about Norfolk's fascinating geodiversity through the resources on our Books and Maps and Links pages, or through joining the Geological Society of Norfolk.