Up a Bathonian backwater - a review of the ammonite evidence for correlating sequences with interdigitating non-marine facies in central and northern England

Page, Kevin N. (2001) Up a Bathonian backwater - a review of the ammonite evidence for correlating sequences with interdigitating non-marine facies in central and northern England. Hantkeniana, 3. pp. 131-148. ISSN 1219-3933

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Abstract

In southern England, Bathonian ammonite sequences are relatively complete and show a strong affinity with those recorded in Submediterranean Province areas, such as eastern France and north eastern Spain. From Oxfordshire, in southern central England, however, to North Yorkshire, north-east England, a gradual replacement of normal marine deposits by non-marine and quasi- or restricted marine facies inevitably leads to a corresponding decrease in the ammonite occurrence. Despite the general absence of these key guide fossils, there have been various attempts to correlate central and northern English Bathonian facies using other fossil groups such as brachiopods, ostracods and dinoflagellates. Lithostratigraphical correlation inevitably predominate, however. Further north into East and North Yorkshire, and ultimately Scotland no Bathonian ammonites are known, an inevitable consequence of the virtual absence of any marine influence within regions dominated by fluvial sedimentation. This belt of non-marine facies completely separates a typical Northwest European [ammonoid] Province, from the Boreal Sea to the north. A review of the known ammonite occurrences in central and northern Britain region is provided, including taxonomic and stratigraphical revisions of ammonite faunas described by previous authors, in particular w I. Arkell in a classic monograph. This revision is used, in combination with stratigraphical information derived from other fossil groups, to present a provisional revised correlation of Bathonian lithostratigraphical units in central and eastern England (Oxfordshire to East Yorkshire).

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