THE GEOLOGY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INTERGLACIAL SEDIMENTS AT LITTLE-OAKLEY, ESSEX

At Little Oakley, near Harwich, an interglacial deposit has been identified and mapped over a distance of ca. 1 km by means of boreholes and from temporary sections. The interglacial sediments are chiefly silts and sands, which occupy a large river channel (150-175 m wide) trending WSW-ENE. The channel sediments are variously underlain by London Clay, Red Crag and another fluvial deposit, the "Oakley Gravel' against which they also abut on their northern margin. The channel occurs at an elevation of between 18 and 24 m o.d. and is thought, on the basis of clast lithology, to have been occupied by the pre-diversion Thames at a point immediately upstream of its confluence with the Medway. The interglacial deposits are rich in fossils, which indicate accumulation during the pre- and early temperate substages of an early Middle Pleistocene interglacial stage. The balance of the palaeontological evidence suggests correlation of the main sequence with the Cromerian sensu stricto. -from Authors