Notes to Accompany a Section of the Strata from the Chalk to the Bembridge Limestone at Whitecliff Bay, Isle of Wight

Abstract

T he section is drawn from measurements made on the shore at low water during the autumn of 1867. In consequence of the dip of the beds being nearly vertical, the horizontal section exposed on the shore at low water is a section nearly at right angles to the stratification; and advantage was taken of favourable tides to measure a continuous section from the basement-bed of the London Clay to the Bemhridge Limestone, always exactly at right angles to the strike of the beds. The dip of the lower part, or the London Clay, is in a direction parallel to the line of the cliffs, so that the section exhibited in the cliff is at right angles to the beds; but the alteration in the direction of the dip, and in the line of the coast, both tend to make the section seen in the cliff more oblique in the higher beds; and in the Headon beds the obliquity is as much as 45°. In bed VII † of the Bracklesham series the junction of a bed of compact clay with a bed of shaly laminated clay was observed, which indicated a denudation of the laminated clay before the deposition of the compact clay on its edges. No detailed examination of the fossils was attempted, except in the case of the Headon beds, where, at the suggestion of Mr. Jenkins (Assistant Secretary of the Geological Society), fossils were carefully sought for, in order to verify the opinion expressed by the Rev.