Hempstead Cliff, Hempstead Series (bed 3), Isle of Wight (Eocene of the United Kingdom)

Where: England, United Kingdom (50.7° N, 1.5° W: paleocoordinates 49.2° N, 5.3° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Hempstead Formation, Late/Upper Eocene (37.2 - 33.9 Ma)

• bed thickness is approx. 50 ft. Forbes calls this the "middle freshwater and estuary marls"

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: estuary or bay; concretionary, ferruginous, argillaceous marl and concretionary, ferruginous, green, yellow, blue, calcareous claystone

• This bed is alternating blue, green, and ferruginous shaly clays divided by shell and seed beds and beds of concretions (clay and ironstone), shaly clays and mottled marls (yellowish) compose the rest of the series . The Hempstead Strata are shales and marls with a variety of colors (green, blue, red, yellow, gray) and some feruginous concretions.

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: concretion, replaced with pyrite

Primary reference: E. Forbes. 1856. On the Tertiary fluvio-marine formation of the Isle of Wight. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, and of the Museum of Practical Geology 1-162 [J. Alroy/E. Leckey/E. Leckey]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 40270: authorized by John Alroy, entered by Erin Leckey on 21.06.2004

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• Forbes notes that many fragments of turtle and similar remains are strewn about below the outcrop and might be derived from this bed
Show authors, comments, and common names
Actinopteri
 Teleostei -
Teleostei indet.
Bivalvia
 Unionida - Unionidae
Unio gibbsii
Unio gibbsii freshwater mussel
Gastropoda
 Cerithioidea - Thiaridae
"Melania fasciata" = Thiara
"Melania fasciata" = Thiara snail
 Architaenioglossa - Viviparidae
Paludina lenta
unclassified
  -
Plantae indet.
Plantae indet. Haeckel 1866
impressions of plants
Carpolithes
  -
Carpolithes ovulum