A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
Fitton, John Morris and A. H. Green in the northern part ; and with those of Prestwich and William Whitaker in the southern part. [1]
The following is a table of the formations met with in Buckinghamshire :
Period | Formation | Character of the Strata | Approximate thickness in feet |
---|---|---|---|
Recent to Neolithic | Alluvium | Silt,peat,clay | up to 20 |
Pleistocine,Paleolithic, and Glacial | Valley Brick Earth | Loam | 10 |
Valley Gravel | Stones of flint, quartzite etc. | 30 | |
Boulder Clay | Chalky Clay, with flints and erratics | up to 40 | |
Glacial Gravel and Sand | Gravel made up of flints, quartzite,etc; and sans | 25 | |
Clay-with flints and loam | Red clay and loam with unworn chalk flints and other materil in 'pipes' of the Chalk | up to 50 | |
Eocene | London Clay | Brown and blue clay with septaria | up to 200 |
Reading Beds | Motled clay,sand, and flint pebble beds | 35 to 80 | |
Cretaceous | Upper Chalk | Chalk with flints | 400 |
Middle Chalk | Chalk with new flints | 175 | |
Lower Chalk | Grey chalk and chalk marl | 150 | |
Upper Greensand | Green Sand and calcareous sandy rock | 20 | |
Gault | Pale marly clay | 200 to 250 | |
Lower Greensand | White and coloured sands,sandstone,ironstone, and fuller's earth | up 250 | |
Jurassic | Purbeck Beds | Thin limestones and clays | 20 to 30 |
Portland beds | Shelly limestone, sands and clay | 60 | |
Kimeridge Clay | Dark Clay and shale | 100 | |
Corallian | Clay with slenite. | 40 to 50 | |
Oxford Clay | Clay with septaria; sandy beds at base | 400 | |
Cornbrash | Rubbly limestone | 5 | |
Great Oolite series | Oolitic and shelly limestones, marls and clays | 50 to 60 | |
Inferioe Oolite series | Clays, sand and sandstone | 5 to 10 | |
Upper liss | Blue clay | 55 to 120 | |
Middle and Lower Lias (not exposed) |
Stone beds,clays,etc | not proved |
Nowhere in Buckinghamshire have any very deep borings at present been made consequently we have no information with regard to the character of the older (Paleozoic) strata, which probably occur in some parts of the county within a thousand feet of the surface.
- ↑ A list of works on the geology of Buckinghamshire, up to 1873, by W. Whitaker, was printed in the Report Brit. Assoc. for 1882, p. 344.
2