The Cromer Forest Bed formation is exposed at intervals along the coast of Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

 and Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, from Weybourne

Weybourne

Weybourne is a fishing resort on the North Norfolk and has the postcode prefix of NR25. The village straddles the A149 coast road and is three miles west of Sheringham, within the Norfolk Coast AONB. Weybourne is mentioned in the Domesday book and in that survey it is called Wabrume...

 to Kessingland

Kessingland

Kessingland is a large village in the Waveney District of the English county of Suffolk. It is located around south of Lowestoft. It is of interest to archaeologists as Palaeolithic and Neolithic implements have been found here; the remains of an ancient forest lie buried on the seabed.There has...

. The forest bed was formed in the Quaternary Period and dates to between 780,000 to 450,000 years ago, within the Cromerian Stage of the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

. For many years the bed, named after the local town of Cromer

Cromer

Cromer is a coastal town and civil parish in north Norfolk, England. The local government authority is North Norfolk District Council, whose headquarters is in Holt Road in the town. The town is situated 23 miles north of the county town, Norwich, and is 4 miles east of Sheringham...

, has been famous for its assemblage of fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 mammal remains, containing, for example, isolated bones and teeth, jaw bones, and the antlers of deer. Although most of the forest bed is now obscured by coastal defence, the Cromer Forest Bed continues to be eroded and is rich in fossils.

The sediments deposited precede those of the Anglian Stage and are on top of Beestonian Stage

Beestonian stage

The Beestonian Stage is the name for an early Pleistocene stage used in the British Isles. It precedes the Cromerian Stage and follows the Pastonian Stage. This stage consists of alternating glacial and interglacial phases instead of being a continuous glacial epoch. It is equivalent to the...

. Based upon the beginning of Marine Isotope Stage 21 and the end of Marine Isotope Stage 13, the Cromerian Complex started 866,000 years ago and ended 478,000 years ago.

Further reading

• Bowen, D.Q., 1978, Quaternary geology: a stratigraphic framework for multidisciplinary work. Pergamon Press, Oxford, United Kingdom. 221 pp. ISBN 978-0080204093
• West, R.G., 1980, The pre-glacial Pleistocene of the Norfolk and Suffolk Coasts Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-21962-0
• Ehlers, J., P. L. Gibbard, and J. Rose, eds., 1991, Glacial deposits in Great Britain and Ireland Balkema, Rotterdam. 580 pp ISBN 978-9061918752
• Mangerud, J., J. Ehlers, and P. Gibbard, 2004, Quaternary Glaciations: Extent and Chronology 1: Part I Europe, Elsevier, Amsterdam. ISBN 0-444-51462-7
• Sibrava, V., Bowen, D.Q, and Richmond, G.M., 1986, Quaternary Glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere, Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 5, pp. 1-514.

External links

• anonymous, 2007, Global correlation tables for the Quaternary, Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England.