Traeth Llanon
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Geology & landscape
Geological Period: Quaternary
Landscape processes: Fluvial, Glacial, Periglacial
Description
Description This is an important site for interpreting Late Pleistocene events in West Wales. The section provides a rare and excellent exposure through a periglacial alluvial fan and shows (1) Welsh till, (2) Irish Sea till and (3) several gravel facies. The lower gravel deposits demonstrate excellent periglacial features, including festoons and vertical stone structures, and are clearly truncated and overlain by finer gravels that show evidence for a renewed phase of periglacial modification. A zone of weathering termed the ‘Llansantffraid interglacial soil’ has been recorded between the till and the gravels and used to correlate the Pleistocene succession in Ireland with that in Wales. However, its pedological and chronological status is now disputed. Whilst the precise dating of the deposits at Llanon is not yet established, the fine stratigraphic detail recording sedimentary and environmental changes is of significant interest for Pleistocene studies.