On the Oligocene Strata of the Hampshire Basin

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
I. I ntroduction T here are perhaps few portions of the series of British strata which have attracted so large a share of the attention of geologists, both in this country and abroad, as the fluvio-marine formation which constitutes the highest member of the Tertiaries of the Hampshire basin. When we remember the numerous memoirs which, since the commencement of the present century, have been devoted to a description of these strata and of their fossils, it might well be supposed that little can remain to be done, either in working out the order of succession of the beds, or in determining their relations to the deposits of other areas. That such is not the case, however, I shall have occasion to show in the memoir which I now submit to this Society; and it may be well that, at the outset of this inquiry, I should briefly indicate the difficulties which beset the study of this particular formation, and the causes which have led to the serious discrepancies of opinion concerning the mutual relations and the geological age of the strata which compose it. Among the difficulties which confront the investigator of the order of succession in these fluvo-marine strata of the Hampshire basin, the most serious is found in the tendency shown by the various members of the formation to undergo rapid variations in mineral characters within short distances. As in the Wealden and other similar deposits formed in deltas, so here, we find the whole mass of strata made

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: