Quaternary fluvial, pedogenic and mass-movement processes at St George’s Down, Newport, Isle of Wight

Farrant, Andrew R.; Hopson, Peter M.; Lee, Jonathan R.; Riding, James B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5529-8989; Hubbard, Richard N.L.B.. 2011 Quaternary fluvial, pedogenic and mass-movement processes at St George’s Down, Newport, Isle of Wight. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 122 (5). 888-905. 10.1016/j.pgeola.2011.08.001

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Abstract/Summary

Recent geological mapping on the Isle of Wight by the British Geological Survey has shown the ‘Plateau Gravel’ to be a mixture of fluvial, solifluction, pedogenic and marine deposits ranging from pre-Anglian to Holocene age. As part of the resurvey of the island, several new exposures of the ‘Plateau Gravel’ between Newport and Downend were examined. A working gravel pit on St George's Down, near Newport, revealed a succession of flint gravels with an inter-bedded sequence of laminated silts. An upper in situ succession of pre-Anglian fluvial gravels caps the plateau, but a second, probably younger suite of gravel-rich sediments is exposed in a quarry on a topographically lower spur. These overlie in situ Clay-with-flints resting on Upper Cretaceous Chalk. These lower sediments are well exposed and display a complex stratigraphy. They consist predominantly of flint gravel, but include a dipping succession of laminated silts and palaeosols preserved in a hollow or small channel feature, intercalated between two distinct soliflucted cold-stage gravel sheets. Palynological and pedological evidence analysis suggests that these laminated silts and sands were deposited under a temperate climate but with frequent episodes of disruption caused by mass-movement and possibly freeze–thaw. The age of these laminated sediments are not known with any certainty but are likely to date to a temperate interval within the Late Pleistocene. The top of the laminated unit is cut by a heavily cryoturbated horizon presumed to be of Devensian age.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1016/j.pgeola.2011.08.001
Programmes:	BGS Programmes 2010 > Geology and Landscape (England)
ISSN:	0016-7878
NORA Subject Terms:	Earth Sciences
Date made live:	07 Dec 2011 11:51 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/16080

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