Amino acid analysis of Pleistocene marine molluscs from the Gower Peninsula

Abstract

The Gower Peninsula, South Wales is a particularly important area, where marine, terrestrial, glacial and non-glacial sediments occur in stratigraphical sequence1. The establishment of a Pleistocene aminostratigraphy where stratigraphical relationships are well established would make it possible to include Pleistocene deposits elsewhere in this stratotypic framework thereby expanding it. Sampling of sites in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Sussex is now being carried out to extend aminostratigraphical correlation of the Pleistocene beaches of southern Britain. Extensive sampling of the Pleistocene beaches of the Gower Peninsula, was carried out during 1981 when specimens of Patella vulgata (Linnaeus) and Nucella lapillus (Linnaeus) were collected for amino acid analysis (Fig. 1). Amino acid analysis is fundamental to the identification of mixed-age populations which, it has been discovered, are common in most beach deposits. This is particularly important because successive high sea-level stands have probably occupied the coast on several occasions, leaving only one extensively reworked deposit as evidence for several marine incursions. If a molluscan fauna was associated with each high stand of sea-level and has been preserved in part, the multiple occupation of these sites can be confirmed and their relative ages resolved.