The Student's Elements of GeologyLyell, Charles, Sir
Science
The Student's Elements of Geology
Lyell, Charles, Sir
Geology
Norwich or Fluvio-marine Crag.—The beds above alluded to ought,
perhaps, to be regarded as beds of passage between the glacial
formations and those called from a provincial name “Crag,” the newest
member of which has been commonly called the “Norwich Crag.” It is
chiefly seen in the neighbourhood of Norwich, and consists of beds of
incoherent sand, loam, and gravel, which are exposed to view on both
banks of the Yare, as at Bramerton and Thorpe. As they contain a
mixture of marine, land, and fresh-water shells, with bones of fish and
mammalia, it is clear that these beds have been accumulated at the
bottom of a sea near the mouth of a river. They form patches rarely
exceeding twenty feet in thickness, resting on white chalk. At their
junction with the chalk there invariably intervenes a bed called the
“Stone-bed,” composed of unrolled chalk-flints, commonly of large size,
mingled with the remains of a land fauna comprising _ Mastodon
arvernensis, Elephas meridionalis,_ and an extinct species of deer. The
mastodon, which is a species characteristic of the Pliocene strata of
Italy and France, is the most abundant fossil, and one not found in the
Cromer forest before mentioned. When these flints, probably long
exposed in the atmosphere, became submerged, they were covered with
barnacles, and the surface of the chalk became perforated by the
_Pholas crispata,_ each fossil shell still remaining at the bottom of
its cylindrical cavity, now filled up with loose sand from the
incumbent crag. This species of Pholas still exists, and drills the
rocks between high and low water on the British coast. The name of
“Fluvio-marine” has often been given to this formation, as no less than
twenty species of land and fresh-water shells have been found in it.
They are all of living species; at least only one univalve, _Paludina
lenta,_ has any, and that a very doubtful, claim to be regarded as
extinct.
Fig. 119: Nucula Cobboldiæ; Fig. 120: Tellina obliqua.
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