Cliff End bonebed [Fairlight Cliffs, near Hastings]: Early/Lower Valanginian, United Kingdom
collected by Clemens, Kermack, University College, London (UCL) 1961

List of taxa
Where & when
Geology
Taphonomy & methods
Metadata & references
Taxonomic list
Chondrichthyes - Hybodontiformes - Hybodontidae
Hybodontidae indet. (Agassiz 1834)
"undescribed species"
Hybodus basanus Egerton 1845
recombined as Egertonodus basanus
Hybodus parridens
Hybodus ensis Woodward 1916
recombined as Planohybodus ensis
Mammalia - Multituberculata - Eobaataridae
Loxaulax valdensis (Woodward 1911)
Clemens 1963 6 specimens
BMNH M21099, M21106 (anterior upper premolars) M21100 (upper incisor), M21098 (a right M2); Clemens & Lees (1971) added: W-18, a multituberculate lower molar and W-6, a left M1 identical to the type of L. valdensis, W-1 (?left M2)
Mammalia - Spalacotheriidae
Spalacotherium tricuspidens Owen 1854
Clemens and Lees 1971 1 specimen
W-3 (upper molar: ?M1)
Mammalia
Aegialodon dawsoni n. gen., n. sp. Kermack et al. 1965
1 specimen
BM M23345
Mammalia - Groeberida - Nototheriidae
cf. Melanodon goodrichi Simpson 1929
Clemens 1963 2 specimens
BMNH M 21101 (upper molar)
    = Melanodon hodsoni Clemens and Lees 1971
Clemens and Lees 1971
recombined as Laolestes hodsoni
also referred University College London specimen W-5 (partial right lower molar)
Reptilia
Reptilia indet. Laurenti 1768
Actinopteri - Pycnodontiformes - Pycnodontidae
Pycnodontidae indet. (Agassiz 1833)
teeth
Actinopteri - Lepisosteiformes
Lepidotes mantelli (Agassiz 1833)
recombined as Scheenstia mantelli
scales
see common names

Geography
Country:United Kingdom State/province:England County:East Sussex
Coordinates: 50.9° North, 0.7° East (view map)
Paleocoordinates:41.7° North, 10.2° East
Basis of coordinate:based on nearby landmark
Geographic resolution:outcrop
Time
Period:Cretaceous Epoch:Early/Lower Cretaceous
Stage:Valanginian 10 m.y. bin:Cretaceous 1
Key time interval:Early/Lower Valanginian Zone: Cypridea paulsgrovensis ostracod Zone
Age range of interval:140.20000 - 136.40000 m.y. ago
Stratigraphy
Geological group:Wealden Formation:Wadhurst Clay
Stratigraphic resolution:bed
Stratigraphy comments: "Fairlight Clay"
Clemens & Lees 1971 (E.R. Shephard-Thorn, pers. comm.): 'Careful study of the cliff sections, and examination of material brought down in cliff falls and exposed in temporary sections between 1965 and 1970 has prompted a revision of their stratigraphy. Briefly this starts from the recognition of a 1m band of dark shales and thin interliminated siltstones with a 10cm clay ironstone band at the top as the equivalent of the basal Wadhurst Clay (traces of the Top Ashdown Pebble Bed (Allen, 1949b) occur beneath it). A massive unit of well-jointed, fine white sandstone, 10 m thick, forms the upper part of the cliff at Cliff End; it is capped by another thin pebble bed. Dark grey shales with thin siltstones, calcareous Tilgate Stone and nodular clay ironstone occur above, in a densely wooded and landslipped "undercliff"; the bone bed lies within these shales about 2.5m above the top of the 10m sandstone. The bone bed is lenticular in horizontal extent and appears to be well-developed between the faults at Haddock Cottages and Cliff End.
Cliff falls are fairly frequent at this locality and usually originate from the undermining of joint-blocks of the massive 10m sandstone by marine erosion. The overlying shales containg the bone bed are often involved in these falls or subsequent slips and thus provide the intermittent supply of slabs of the bone bed to the beach, from which they have been previously recorded erroneously as in situ.
Support for the revised stratigraphy outlined above has come from examination of the ostracod faunas of shale samples, collected at CLiff End by Dr F. W. Anderson of the Institute of Geological Sciences. He confirms the equivalence of the 1m band of shales with siltstones and ironstones to the basal Wadhurst Clay and assigns the bone-bed to the approximate horizon of the Lydd "S" phase of the Cypridea Beds (C. paulsgrovensis Zone) of the zonal scheme her has recently put forward for the Wadhurst Clay (Anderson et al 1967)'
Lithology and environment
Primary lithology:wave ripples,coarse,quartzose calcareous conglomerate
Includes fossils?Y
Lithology description: "coarse sand-stone between 2 and 5 in. thick (5 to 12.5 cm), with its upper surface ripple marked. The sandstone is made up of angular grains of quartz...The cement...is calcareous." Clemens & Lees (1971): Allen (1967) has noted that the Cliff End bone bed and the Telham pebble bed can be distinguished lithologically from all other Wealden bone and pebble beds. Both are '...dominated by unstained sub-angular pebbles of "vein" quartz and grey or white quartzite, including types not known elsehwere (Allen, 1967:262)'. The lithological similarity suggests that the Cliff End bone bed was formed as part of the Telham pebble bed. However, the Telham pebble bed is a unit within the lower part of the Wadhurst Clay while the CLiff End bone bed was assumed to be part of the underlying Ashdown Sand or Fairlight Clay. Now Shephard-Thorn has accumulated considerable evidence indicating that the upper part of the cliff section at Cliff End is made up of a coarse facies of the Wadhurst Clay. The Cliff End bone bed is one of the uppermost strata in this coarse facies.
Environment:estuary/bay
Geology comments: "deltaic or estuarine origin"
Taphonomy
Modes of preservation:body
Degree of concentration:-bonebed
Size of fossils:macrofossils,mesofossils
Preservation of anatomical detail:good
Fragmentation:occasional
Spatial resolution:parautochthonous
Collection methods and comments
Collection methods:bulk,chemical,mechanical,sieve,field collection
Reason for describing collection:general faunal/floral analysis
Collectors:Clemens, Kermack, University College, London (UCL) Collection dates:1961
Collection method comments: 10% formic acid dissolution
Metadata
Database number:102993
Authorizer:M. Carrano, R. Benson Enterer:M. Carrano, R. Benson
Modifier:M. Carrano Research group:vertebrate
Created:2011-01-21 08:02:28 Last modified:2021-09-23 14:00:01
Access level:the public Released:2011-01-21 08:02:28
Creative Commons license:CC BY
Reference information

Primary reference:

18679. K. A. Kermack, P. M. Lees, and F. Mussett. 1965. Aegialodon dawsoni, a new trituberculosectorial tooth from the Lower Wealden. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B (Biological Sciences) 162(989):535-554 [L. van den Hoek Ostende/L. van den Hoek Ostende/M. Carrano]

Secondary references:

78161 D. J. Batten and P. A. Austen. 2011. The Wealden of south-east England. In D. J. Batten (ed.), English Wealden Fossils. The Palaeontological Association Field Guide to Fossils 14:15-51 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano]
38228 W. A. Clemens. 1963. Wealden mammalian fossils. Palaeontology 6(1):55-69 [R. Benson/R. Benson]
39150 W. A. Clemens and P. M. Lees. 1971. A review of English Early Cretaceous mammals. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 50(suppl. 1):117-130 [R. Benson/R. Benson]
38229 A. S. Woodward. 1911. On some mammalian teeth from the Wealden of Hastings. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 67:278-281 [R. Benson/R. Benson/M. Carrano]