Ardleigh Gravel Pit

Also within

Essex County

Condition (Natural England)

Geology & landscape

Geological Period: Quaternary

Landscape processes: Fluvial

Description

Description Ardleigh Gravel Pit has exposed deposits belonging to the Kesgrave Formation early Thames gravels for many years. In the 1960's interglacial remains were recorded here and a Hoxnian age suggested. More recent exposures have revealed organic sediments from much older periods, interbedded with the Kesgrave deposits. The oldest of these is of interglacial origin and contains wood and other plant remains as well as pollen. The latter indicates an Early Middle Pleistocene age, perhaps within the Cromer Complex of interglacials recognised in the Netherlands, but probably earlier than the Cromerian sensu stricto of the British type site. The only other British locality where interglacial deposits similar to those at Ardleigh have been recorded is Broomfield, near Chelmsford, unfortunately no longer available for study. Higher in the sequence at Ardleigh a further horizon rich in pollen and plant remains occurs, but this time of cold climate arctic affinities. This horizon contains important plant macrofossils rare or unique in Britain. A fossil rubified soil has also been identified at the top of the fluvial sequence at Ardleigh, believed to represent the Valley Farm Soil of Suffolk. Currently work is progressing with the aim of correlating the Kesgrave gravels of southern East Anglia with deposits in the modern Middle Thames valley. The site at Ardleigh is clearly of major importance for British Pleistocene stratigraphy and palaeogeographical reconstruction. It is likely to become the type site for a new British Early Middle Pleistocene interglacial, the deposits from which are of international significance.