Post-glacial Foraminifera from the English Fenlands

Abstract

There are three principal types, peat, fen clay (otherwise called blue buttery clay), and silt, in the post-glacial deposits of the Fenlands, which lie mainly within the shires of Cambridge and Lincoln, and Norfolk. It has long been known that Foraminifera occur in the silt and clay. The genus Lagena was recorded from the silt by Williamson in 1848, with twelve species from March, and sixteen species from Boston. In 1865, Parker and Jones listed thirty-five species of various genera from four samples of sub-Recent clay and silty clay from near Peterborough, Boston, and Wisbech. In 1870, H. B. Brady described the living brackish water Foraminifera from our coasts, and compared them with those recorded from the sub-Recent Fenland deposits by Parker and Jones. In a footnote (p. 306) he added the record of eight more species, so he presumably had a private communication from these authors, or himself studied further material. In 1881, James Green in two short papers noted the occurrence of abundant Foraminifera in layers of the March roddon, and figured nine species therefrom.