Geology -- Great Britain; Geology, Stratigraphic -- Cretaceous
Thus, then, we have come to the termination of our journey. We have
noted the beginning and the ending of the Red Chalk, we have also
taken some account of its neighbours. We have noticed, too, that in
Yorkshire it for the most part reposes on the Speeton clay, though in
certain localities it is next the lias and Kimmeridge clay, and that in
Lincolnshire and Norfolk it rests on a dark brown pebbly mass supposed
to belong to the lower greensand formation of the south of England.
The Red Chalk has also been discovered in a very unexpected place,
although not _in sitû_. I allude to the drift of Muswell Hill. In that
collection of different materials, comprising examples from every
formation from the London clay to the mountain limestone in a stratum of
eighteen feet, the Red Chalk has been seen in a bouldered condition.
By the kindness of Mr. Wetherell of Highgate, I am enabled to exhibit
specimens from the drift of Muswell Hill. Any person who compares them
with others from Hunstanton, would declare they came from the same bed,
so alike are they in appearance.
There was a time no doubt when this Red Chalk had a more extended range:
its presence in the drift of Muswell Hill, as well as in the drift of
other places, implies as much. Perhaps it may still exist elsewhere,
deep down in the earth.
In a well sunk at Stowmarket a red substance was found under the White
Chalk, at a depth of 900 feet; and in another well sunk at Kentish Town,
the workmen met, at a depth of 1,113 feet below the surface, beneath
the gault, a bed of red matter 188 feet thick--some of this red matter
appeared to contain belemnites.
Geologists are divided in opinion with respect to this deep-sunk red
bed, which certainly is not always continuous (for instance, it was not
found at a boring at Harwich), and some incline to the opinion that it
belongs to the New Red, others that it is the equivalent of what is
styled the Red Chalk. But it is difficult to give a solution at present.
It is certain that in the gault formation, or near it, beds of a red
colour are occasionally found. Near Dorking the lower greensand is
capped by a local bed of bright red clay, eight feet thick. And examples
of red clays from the gault of Ringmer in Sussex and Charing in Kent can
be seen in the Museum of the Geological Society of London. Whether they
have any relation with the Red Chalk proper of England depends upon the
position which is given to that formation.
Geologists generally consider the Red Chalk as really equal to the
Gault. Many of the fossils certainly are gault species; others no doubt
belong to the Lower Chalk; and, therefore, probably it is better to
regard it as an intermediate formation between the Lower Chalk and
the Lower Greensand, which comes into being when the Gault and Upper
Greensand have almost thinned out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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