Locations in the Norfolk area: A personal view
Alison Cruickshanks (UK)
In the first part of this article, I discussed locations in the Suffolk area. Since then, I have visited a few locations in the neighbouring county of Norfolk including West Runton, Weybourne, Overstrand and Hunstanton. Most of the rocks in Norfolk are Cretaceous. However, you also find deposits from the Pleistocene period that yield a wide variety of fossils. Therefore, this article will cover fossils from both of these geological times. There are also many other interesting and productive locations in Norfolk, but this is just a few of the most popular.
Overstrand
Overstrand can be a very unpredictable location as fossils found here come from deposits that are below beach level. There is also a sea defence and several groynes that, together, limit excessive beach scouring. However, if you’re lucky and scouring does occur, you can find some good specimens. This normally happens during the autumn and spring months after prolonged northerly winds (Fig. 1).
The cliffs at Overstrand are of glacial origin and contain no fossils. However, there is a small fault, just passed the granite sea defence, where a small section of chalk with overlying Wroxham Crag (formally Weybourne Crag) can be seen. This provides a good opportunity to examine exposures normally obscured by sand and gives you an idea of the formations below beach level from where the fossils are washed out. The Wroxham Crag was deposited during the Pleistocene period. The upper sequences are known as the Wroxham Crag Forest Bed and are from the Pastonian stage. The lower section, from the Pre-Pastonian Stage, consists of a very hard, thin layer with flints and shells.
You can normally find evidence of echinoids within the chalk face. Since this cliff section is protected by the wave baffles, collectors have removed any complete ones long ago. However, occasionally after heavy rain, you can find complete echinoids and belemnites. The Wroxham Crag on top of the chalk at this fault is quite poor and fossils are rarely found. In addition, a small section of the Wroxham Crag Forest Bed can be seen but this isn’t anywhere as productive as our next location – Weybourne (see below).
The vast majority of fossils are collected from the foreshore. Large echinoids (Echinocorys scutata; Fig. 3) are commonly found in good condition along the beach. The chalk is very young (from the Maastrichtian period of the Cretaceous) and is also very soft. At extreme low tide, a wide variety of sponges can be seen along with occasional corals and fish remains. All of these fossils are from the chalk below beach level.
You can also usually see fragments of broken bones on the foreshore. These are from the Wroxham Crag. During scouring conditions, complete bones including mammoth teeth, deer antlers and whalebones can be found. When scouring occurs, it often happens around the groynes. Local collectors will always check these areas first, as bones tend to become ‘trapped’ here.
When I first went to this location, all I could see was sand. It was hard to imagine how, with the right conditions, you can come home with bags full of fossils. Nevertheless, I did find a lot of belemnites and Alister found an echinoid (E scutata) from the fault in the cliff. There has been a recent cliff fall here that occurred after a prolonged period of heavy rain. Therefore, I hope to return to this location when conditions are more favourable, so that I can search the foreshore.
Weybourne
To get to the site at Weybourne, the walk can quickly tire you out, as it seems to go on forever (Fig. 4). It is slow progress over the huge pebble bank along this part of the coastline and can make Weybourne quite a challenge, especially if you are carrying your finds back home.
Weybourne has similar geology as Overstand, the only difference being that the chalk is a little older (Campanian) and everything is much higher up. To get to the Wroxham Crag, you often have to climb the chalk. Sometimes, if the sea has washed away some of the pebbles, it is impossible to access this Crag, although some local collectors in the past have left ladders lying around.
You can find similar fossils at Overstrand and they tend to be more common there. In addition, fossils from the chalk at Weybourne are not in as good condition and are smaller than those from Overstrand. For example, E scutata echinoids are also quite common, but are smaller and often crushed. However, you can also collect samples from the Wroxham Crag Forest Bed, which is rich in small mammal remains and rests on the Wroxham Crag.
When I visited Weybourne, my husband was jumping up and down with excitement as an extreme low tide and favourable scouring conditions had exposed the lower zones of chalk on the foreshore (Fig. 5). He had never seen the chalk on the foreshore before and this rare occasion should have given us the opportunity to collect the lovely heart shaped echinoids, Micraster.
We spent a couple of hours searching the foreshore and collected some very nice sponges (Fig. 6). However, we didn’t manage to find any Micraster sea urchins, but were still pleased with the finds we did make.
I found plenty of belemnites (Belemnitella sp.), which are common at Weybourne. It is impossible to miss them in the cliff face and they make give a great opportunity to practice at getting fossils out of rock using a hammer and chisel. Other finds from the chalk cliff face that I found included sea urchin spines (Tylocidaris clavigera), bivalves (Ostrea vesicularis) and brachiopods (Cretirhynchia limbata). Since most of the locations I have previously visited in Suffolk consisted of sands and clays, when I visited this site, I finally got to use my new geological hammer – a Christmas present from my mother-in-law!
West Runton
West Runton is famous for the discovery of the ‘West Runton Elephant’. This elephant came from the West Runton Fresh Water Bed, part of the Cromer Forest Bed sequence that rests on top of the Wroxham Crag (Fig. 7). The Cromer Forest Bed formation is exposed at intervals along the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, from Weybourne in Norfolk to Kessingland in Suffolk. One of those locations, Pakefield, was featured in the first part of this article.
The forest bed was laid down between 700,000 to 500,000 years ago in the Quaternary period. The bed has been famous for fossil mammal remains for many years. Isolated bones and teeth, jawbones and the antlers of deer have been found and the Cromer Forest Bed continues to be eroded and is rich in fossils, although coastal defences now obscure most of the forest bed. The West Runton Fresh Water bed is the name given to the particular section at West Runton. This bed contains microscopic pollen, seeds, mollusc shells, beetles, fish, frog, bird and also large mammals bones and teeth and with ages between 600,000 to 700,000 years. These are from the Cromerian period, which is older than other exposures along the coast.
Harold and Margaret Hems found the first part of the elephant in 1990. Various other bones were found after storms and they soon realised that there was a strong likelihood that many more could be found. In 1995, a full-scale excavation was carried out after funding was obtained. A large number of bones were eventually found and the elephant made news around the world. It was finally identified as being Mammuthus trogontherii.
This location is also very good for finding fossils on the foreshore. Like Overstrand, the chalk is exposed during scouring conditions but, unlike Overstrand, scouring occurs much more frequently.
When I visited West Runton, the foreshore was well exposed (Fig. 8), but there were already a few collectors on scene. These collectors headed straight for the areas around the first groyne and one of them found a partial molar of a mammoth from the Wroxham Crag. I found a nice echinoid (E scutata) and. I also found a small coral and a few belemnites. Micraster echinoids (Fig. 9) can also be found here and, further along the coast at Sheringham, sharks’ vertebrae can be found within the chalk that is exposed on the foreshore.
Hunstanton
Hunstanton is a popular seaside town that also has a large sandy beach. Anyone who has visited Hunstanton will always remember the magnificent red and white cliffs. The red colour is from the Red Chalk and, below this, are the Carstone Beds, which are a reddish-brown colour. The white part of the cliff is Lower Chalk (Figs. 10, 11 and 12).
In recent years, erosion along this part of the coastline has been extensive with frequent cliff falls. Alister and his father, Ian, have found many wonderful specimens from Hunstanton including two very large ammonites (Fig. 13), a nautilus, a complete fish, sharks’ teeth and various echinoids including Holaster subglobosus (Fig. 14).
However, you have to work hard for your finds here, so a big hammer and chisel are highly recommended.
I managed to find a few brachiopods (Moutonithyris dutempleana; Fig. 16), belemnites (Neohibolites minimus) and corals (Trochocyathus sp) from the Red Chalk and a sea urchin spine from the Lower Chalk. Unfortunately, the weather later became very unsettled, restricting the time we had to have a good look at the site.
For a full list of what can be found at these locations, details of location access and more photos and information, visit the UK Fossils links below.
| UK Fossils links: |
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| Weybourne – www.weybourne.ukfossils.co.uk |
| Overstrand – www.overstrand.ukfossils.co.uk |
| West Runton – www.west-runton.ukfossils.co.uk |
| Hunstanton – www.hunstanton.ukfossils.co.uk |
The final part of this article will focus on a few locations on the Isle of Wight.
| Other articles in this series |
|---|
| Locations in the Suffolk Area – a personal view |
| Locations in the Norfolk Area – a personal view |
| Locations on the Isle of Wight – a personal view |