Easton Bavents Fossil Hunting

The eroding coast at Easton Bavents, just north of Southwold, reveals Early Pleistocene sands, clays and gravels of the Norwich Crag. Shells, fish remains and rare mammal fossils record a changing North Sea coastline, although beach sand often hides the most productive beds.

FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦♦ – Variable; shelly beds are often covered, and significant vertebrate finds are rare.
CHILDREN: ♦♦♦♦ – Only with close supervision on a safe open beach, well away from cliffs and the rising tide.
ACCESS: ♦♦♦♦ – A beach walk north from Southwold, dependent on tide, sea state and erosion.
TYPE: – Coastal cliffs and foreshore.

DIRECTIONS

♦ Approach Southwold from the A12 using the A1095 (Halesworth Road). After Mights Bridge, take the second left into Pier Avenue and continue to the pier. Use the council car park immediately north of the pier, postcode IP18 6BN; park towards its seaward end if spaces and signs permit. Follow current payment and parking notices.
♦ From the pier, walk north along the seafront to the beginning of the natural cliffs, then continue only while the beach is wide enough to remain well clear of the cliff and sea. The fossil locality lies beyond the first part of the frontage.
♦ Easton Lane is not a general public parking shortcut: the old guide specifically required residents’ permission. Do not use private parking or an eroded cliff-top path without permission and a safe open route.
♦ Locality reference: 52.344097, 1.689448.

FOSSIL HUNTING

Easton Bavents is a scientifically important Norwich Crag locality, but productive beds are often buried by modern beach sand. Search loose foreshore material in calm conditions after the sea has removed cover. Record the position and matrix of a find: a worn beach bone cannot automatically be assigned to the bed nearest to it.

The upper shelly horizon has documented large-mammal remains including Mammuthus meridionalis, Anancus arvernensis, Eucladoceros falconeri and Equus cf. stenonis. These are scientific records, not a promise of frequent finds. Marine shells and small fish remains provide a more practical focus when shelly material is available.

A walrus lower jaw recovered in 1993 is an important example of a find with recorded in-situ provenance. Rare bones and teeth should be photographed and their location recorded before handling. Do not dig into standing cliffs or intact shell horizons; ask the landowner or site manager before sampling protected deposits.

Significant fossil, geological and conservation milestones at Easton Bavents.

1966 – Vole teeth described
J. N. Carreck described Mimomys teeth from Easton Bavents, adding a small-mammal record useful for comparing Early Pleistocene deposits. The original identification should be read in the light of subsequent vole revisions.

1993 – Walrus jaw recovered
Alister and Ian Cruickshanks recovered a complete lower jaw from a gravel horizon after high tides. The find retained geological context and was subsequently studied through Norwich Castle Museum.

2003 – Walrus identification clarified
The jaw was identified as Alachtherium cretsii following specialist examination, including work by Klaas Post. This is an identification milestone, distinct from its discovery a decade earlier.

2005 – Coastal scientific interest protected
The Pakefield to Easton Bavents SSSI was re-notified, recognising the Norwich Crag sections and their vertebrate and palaeoenvironmental importance within a wider protected coast.

2020 – Early Pleistocene correlations reviewed
A comparative study of Crag faunas and dating revisited the relationship of the Baventian succession to other North Sea deposits, reinforcing the need to distinguish shelly Crag, cold-stage clay and younger marine horizons.

References
Carreck (1966), Microtine remains from Norwich Crag at Easton Bavents, PGA 77, 491–496
Cruickshanks, Walrus of the Norwich Crag: Alachtherium cretsii
Natural England, Pakefield to Easton Bavents SSSI citation (2005), hosted copy
Preece et al. (2020), palaeontology and dating of the Weybourne Crag; includes exact Covehithe/Easton comparison

GEOLOGY

Easton Bavents records an Early Pleistocene sea margin where shelly sand, quiet-water mud and coarser gravel accumulated under changing conditions. The older exposed marine deposits belong to the Norwich Crag Formation. Historical descriptions distinguish several shell-rich bands in North Cliff, while the separately described South Cliff showed finer gravel with sand and clay lamination. These are lateral variations in the coastal sedimentary record, rather than a uniform sequence of fossil beds that can be followed unchanged along the entire shore.

Above the shelly deposits, the blue-grey laminated clay and fine sand historically called Baventian Clay record cold shallow-marine and intertidal conditions. Cooling does not mean that an ice sheet deposited this clay. Later currents cut into the fine sediment and laid down flint-rich Westleton gravels. Published channel sections show gravel passing upwards into sand and have been interpreted as nearshore rip-current channels. Higher quartz-bearing Wroxham Crag deposits represent another marine sand-and-gravel component, whereas the brown Lowestoft till capping parts of the coast belongs to a much younger glacial episode.

This history of channel cutting, changing shorelines and later erosion helps explain the uneven distribution of fossils. Shell bands thin or disappear, and bone-bearing gravel varies laterally; vertebrate remains also occur in shelly deposits, so a loose bone does not identify one particular gravel horizon. The historical North Cliff and South Cliff observations and the dated measured sections describe different exposures. Modern retreat and beach cover continually change what is visible, making the original bed and sediment association more informative than a find’s position on today’s shingle.

The supported stratigraphy and its local variations at Easton Bavents.

CRAG GROUP

Marine deposits forming the older exposed succession.

Norwich Crag Formation

Early Pleistocene shelly sand, locally gravelly, followed by mud and gravel facies. The visible succession is incomplete and laterally variable.

Chillesford Church Member — shelly sand facies

The SSSI citation uses this name for the basal Norwich Crag sands. Older local accounts divide the shell-bearing exposure rather than providing a single laterally persistent measured column.

Lower, Middle and Upper Shell Beds

Three informal shell-rich bands are documented in North Cliff. South Cliff instead has finer gravel with sand and clay lamination, compared in the collecting account with the lower shelly interval. The river interpretation remains tentative.

Stone or bone-bearing gravel horizon

The North Cliff gravel lies below the Baventian clay. Vertebrate remains also occur in shelly deposits, so a loose bone cannot be attributed to this horizon simply because it is present.

Historical Easton Bavents Clay Member — Baventian Clay

Blue-grey laminated clay and fine sand record cold shallow-marine/intertidal conditions. The local term remains useful in the scientific literature; the Lexicon’s EBC entry is obsolete and redirects to Chillesford Clay, which should not be treated as proof of one continuous time-parallel bed.

Westleton Member

Flint-rich gravels overlie the clay with an erosional break. Gravel channels and lateral truncation are important: old stage assignments vary and should not be converted into a precise universal date.

Wroxham Crag Formation

Quartz-bearing sands and gravels are recognised above the flint-rich Westleton deposits in the coastal interpretation. They must be distinguished from glacial outwash.

ALBION GLACIGENIC GROUP

Younger deposits associated with Middle Pleistocene glaciation.

Lowestoft Formation

Brown till caps parts of the described coastal section, separated by a substantial break from the older marine deposits. Its thickness should not be extrapolated along every cliff.

A separate 1993 measured section at TM 5165 7890

BGS recorded this historical face separately from the shell-band descriptions above. Read the following beds from bottom to top; do not stack this comparison on top of another log.

At least 2.0 m: mud and shelly sand
Grey mud, brown when weathered, alternates with fine cross-laminated shelly sand.

0.3 m: flint gravel
Predominantly rounded flint.

1.5 m: sand with gravel
Fine to medium sand, weak cross-bedding, gravel lenses and stringers.

1.0 m: channel-based sand and gravel
Rounded flint pebbles and cobbles in mixed gravelly sand and sandy gravel.

Channel cycles recorded in 1987 at TM 516 783

Up to four gravel-to-sand cycles were recorded: flint gravel as much as 0.4 m thick lined channels about 2 m deep and 20 m wide, passing upwards into planar-bedded sand. They were interpreted as nearshore rip-current channels.

Historical local observations: South Cliff and North Cliff

The original UK Fossils field account traced a fine-gravel, bone-bearing horizon from below beach level near the Easton Lane alignment, rising to around 1 m or more towards the northern end of South Cliff. No shell bed was reported in that particular exposure. These are observations of former cliff faces, not fixed modern collecting points or a measured demonstration of a river channel.

At the southern end of the separate North Cliff, thicker shell beds were overlain by a thin bone-bearing gravel. The account described a gap in the visible shell and bone beds between the southern and middle parts of the cliff. Farther north the shell beds reappeared, then thinned and eventually disappeared, while the gravel horizon thickened towards the end of the cliff. The overlying historically named Baventian clay was also thicker there than farther south. These lateral changes should be kept separate from the dated measured logs above; erosion and cover can produce a different view today.

References

BGS Lexicon: Norwich Crag Formation
Natural England, Pakefield to Easton Bavents SSSI citation (2005), hosted copy
Cruickshanks, Walrus of the Norwich Crag: Alachtherium cretsii
BGS Lexicon: Easton Bavents Clay Member (obsolete entry)
Preece et al. (2020), palaeontology and dating of the Weybourne Crag; includes exact Covehithe/Easton comparison
Holt-Wilson (2015), Tides of Change, Easton Bavents
McMillan et al. (2011), A lithostratigraphical framework, RR/10/03
Moorlock et al. (2000), Geology of the country around Lowestoft and Saxmundham, sheets 176 and 191

Historical local field observations: UK Fossils, Easton Bavents.

SAFETY

Allow generous room between the sea and the cliff and return before the beach narrows. Falls can occur without warning in dry weather as well as after rain. Avoid cliff edges, fresh slumps and soft waterlogged sand. Old concrete, wire and metal from earlier coastal works may be exposed after a scour. Do not visit during a storm to search for newly released fossils.

EQUIPMENT

Take sturdy footwear, a charged phone, tide information, a hand lens, a notebook and small padded rigid boxes. A photograph with a scale is valuable for a fragile bone or a fossil that should remain in place. Heavy excavation tools are inappropriate for an ordinary visit.

CLEANING AND TREATING

Keep fragile bone supported in its matrix and prevent rubbing or rapid drying in direct heat. Begin with gentle dry brushing only where the surface is stable. Do not soak friable bone, coat it routinely with PVA or varnish, or use acids and bleach. A significant specimen is best left unprepared for specialist assessment; reversible consolidation such as Paraloid B-72 is appropriate only when actually needed and applied with suitable advice.

IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS

FURTHER READING

Cruickshanks, Walrus of the Norwich Crag: Alachtherium cretsii
Holt-Wilson (2015), Tides of Change, Easton Bavents
Preece et al. (2020), palaeontology and dating of the Weybourne Crag; includes exact Covehithe/Easton comparison
Natural England, Pakefield to Easton Bavents SSSI citation (2005), hosted copy
Moorlock et al. (2000), Geology of the country around Lowestoft and Saxmundham, sheets 176 and 191

ACCESS RIGHTS

The cliffs form part of the Pakefield to Easton Bavents SSSI, protected for their geology and wildlife. Use lawful public access and obey conservation notices. Public access does not permit excavation of the cliff or protected shell beds: obtain the relevant landowner agreement and conservation consent before sampling. Keep clear of nesting birds and private cliff-top land.

It is important to follow our ‘Code of Conduct’ when collecting fossils or visiting any site. Please also read our ‘Terms and Conditions’.

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