On the Tertiary or Supracretaceous Formations of the Isle of Wight as exhibited in the Sections at Alum Bay and White Cliff Bay

Abstract

In the London tertiary district there are but few good sections of the middle and upper Eocene strata; and there is no part of it in which the order of superposition is so well shown, or can be so conveniently studied, as in the coast sections of Hampshire and of the Isle of Wight. Owing to this better and more permanent stratigraphical evidence, it may be desirable, before treating of the London tertiaries, to fix the subdivisions of the contemporaneous Hampshire series, in order that they may serve as types and points of reference. I therefore beg to submit to the Society the following observations made in the autumn of 1839, which I should have brought forward at an earlier period, had I not hoped to have rendered them more complete by a further examination of the district, which however I have not had leisure since to resume. The general details of this subject are well known. I will briefly note the results obtained by former observers, and then examine in succession the development and nature of the organic remains, conjointly with the changes of lithological characters and of dip, and I hope these may tend to remove some of the uncertainty and doubt which seem still to exist, particularly on the continent, on the subject of the fauna of these strata, and on the period of the disturbance by which they have been affected. Their age and synchronism with the Paris groups also require, I think, some material revision.