The Palaeontology of the London Clay (Lower Eocene) of the Herne Bay coastal section, Kent, England

Abstract

The locality of ‘Herne Bay’ has been visited by collectors for about 150 years but no adequate account of its London Clay fossils has ever been published. The Oldhaven and Thanet Beds molluscs were dealt with by Cooper (1934). The present paper provides data on the London Clay of the North Kent coast from Whitstable to Bishopstone Glen (Oldhaven Gap) and gives a biotic list based on museum material, published records and recent collecting. The list is comparable in size to those for the London Clay of Sheppey (Davis, 1936, Davis, 1937) and Bognor (Venables, 1963), these and Herne Bay being the most important coastal localities for London Clay fossils. As no useful exposures of London Clay are now available, particularly in the cliffs and foreshore between Herne Bay town and Bishopstone Glen, it has not been possible to give any precise biostratigraphical interpretation of the fossils, beyond stating that they range from the lowest London Clay (?below Division I of Wrigley, 1924; 1940) to the lowest few metres of Division 3, a total thickness of some 40 metres.