The bone bed at Shropham Pit
Post date: Jan 14, 2016 11:22:47 PM
The Bulletin of the Geological Society of Norfolk (no. 65) has just published a paper on the rescue excavation of a late Pleistocene bone bed at Shropham Pit, Norfolk - 'The bone bed at Shropham Pit, Norfolk - the results of rescue investigation, 1994'. This work was carried out by Tim Holt-Wilson with the help of volunteers and the support of Adrian Read of the Database Group of the GSN (a member of the Norfolk Geodiversity Partnership).
Quarrying in a succession of pits at Shropham, Norfolk, from the 1950s to 1990s revealed sediments containing rich vertebrate and other fossils dated to the Ipswichian (Eemian) and Devensian (Weichselian) stages of the late Pleistocene. Work conducted in 1994 by the Database Group enabled the rescue recording of temporary exposures of strata. Among them was a bone bed containing Ipswichian fossils, and the results of its partial excavation are presented in this paper. Supported by additional results from Royal Holloway College, University of London, the bone bed is interpreted as having been emplaced by a sediment gravity flow in a lacustrine context during the early Devensian. The role of dynamic factors in the depositional environment, including Chalk bedrock dissolution and periglacial diapirism, are explored. Priorities for future work are proposed.
Diagram of Section Y, showing a bone bed at the interface between an Ipswichian lacustrine marl (Unit A) and an overlying early Devensian sediment gravity flow diamicton (B).
Close-up of the bone bed showing a thoracic vertebra of Bison priscus.
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