Lofts Farm Pit

Also within

Essex County

Condition (Natural England)

Habitats

Fast flowing river and stream

Geology & landscape

Geological Period: Quaternary

Landscape processes: Fluvial, Glacial, Periglacial

Description

Description The site at Lofts Farm Pit is of great importance for studies of the Quaternary evolution of the Thames river system. Within the former gravel workings the following sequencehas been recorded: 1 disturbed clayey gravel with ice wedge casts and involutions; 2 organic clays and silts; 3 horizontally bedded gravel; 4 London Clay bedrock. The gravels are of fluvial origin and belong to the 2nd terrace of the Blackwater, a former tributary of the River Thames. They were-deposited by a braided river under periglacial conditions. The organic clays and silts interbedded with the river gravels have yielded mammal bones, pollen, plant remains, insects and ostracods which indicate cold climate conditions at the time of deposition. The mammalian fauna includes an assemblage of Canus lupus wolf, Crocuta crocuta spotted hyaena, Rangifer tarandus reindeer, Megaloceros giant deer, Bison bovid, Coelodonta antiquitatis woolly rhinoceros, Equus ferus horse and Mammuthus primigenius woolly mammoth. Numerous species of Coloeptera beetles have also bee found, including species no longer native to great Britain Diacheila polita, Amara municipalis and Amara torrida. The importance of the site lies in its stratigraphical position within the Thames system. It appears to represent the Devensian last glacial stage, which is seldom found in conservable locations above flood plain level in the Thames system. There is, however, some indication from the fossil insects that the deposits may belong to an older glacial event which pre dates the Ipswichian last interglacial. If the deposits are of pre Ipswichian age, they represent a period for which there is little other faunal evidence in the Thames basin. If the deposits are of a period for which there is little other faunal evidence in the Thames basin. If the deposits are of a Devensian age, the fossil remains provide new evidence for a previously unrecognised cold episode within the Devensian stage. In either case, the deposits at Lofts Farm Pit are important evidence for the Quaternary evolution of the Thames. Further research will be required to clarify the precise stratigraphical position of the deposits.

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