Folkestone Fossil Hunting

1818–1819 – Early descriptions of the coastal Chalk
William Phillips described the Folkestone–Dover cliffs using changes in flints, rock character and fossils. These observations helped establish the early lithological subdivision of the English Chalk.

1858 – Local fossils form the first museum collection
Much of Samuel Mackie’s collection of Folkestone fossils and geological specimens formed the town’s first museum, providing a lasting record of finds from its rapidly changing coast.

1867 – Armoured dinosaur material described
Thomas Henry Huxley named Acanthopholis horridus from fragmentary material obtained through the Folkestone collector John Griffiths. Surviving syntypes from Copt Point include pieces of armour. The historical name is now regarded as doubtful rather than a securely distinguishable dinosaur species.

1868–1876 – The Gault divided bed by bed
Charles De Rance and F. G. Hilton Price established the numbered divisions of the fossiliferous Gault at Copt Point. Their work provided the foundation for the later thirteen-bed reference succession.

1885 – A Folkestone coelacanth enters the national collection
The British Museum purchased a Gault coelacanth skull and associated skeletal remains from John Starkie Gardner. Its exact collecting date was not recorded; the specimen would be recognised as a new species more than a century later.

1891–1898 – Microscopic fossils documented systematically
Frederick Chapman’s studies of Folkestone Gault foraminifera used samples tied to the numbered Copt Point beds and measured positions within them, establishing a detailed record of the microscopic fauna.

1900 – Thirteen Gault beds established
The Geological Survey synthesis subdivided the old highest Gault unit into three, producing the familiar Beds I–XIII scheme. The numbering remains useful even though later work showed that most bed boundaries do not coincide exactly with ammonite subzones.

1915 – The Great Fall reactivates the Warren
A major landslide disrupted the Folkestone–Dover railway and moved large masses of Chalk and Gault. The event made the Warren a major site for studying coastal landslides and explains why displaced Chalk blocks occur at beach level.

1953 – A concrete apron stabilises the landslide toe
Construction of the concrete toe-weight apron changed the Warren shore. Later geological observations distinguish the protected frontage and displaced shore platform from the actively eroding cliffs farther east.

1961 – The Folkestone Formation logged in detail
Raymond Casey’s measured succession documented thin sandstone, greensand and phosphate horizons at East Cliff, including the Main Mammillatum Bed and Sulphur Band. It remains an important framework for interpreting isolated surviving exposures.

1970s–1990s – Upper Gault contact clarified
Work associated with Channel Tunnel investigations helped resolve confusion between the uppermost Gault and slipped glauconitic material from the overlying Chalk. The correction matters when assigning old specimens and measured sections to Beds XI–XIII.

1987 – Folkestone Warren renotified as an SSSI
The protected site was renotified for its biological and geological interest, including the Gault and Folkestone Formation reference sections, marine reptiles, Chalk stratigraphy and the landslide complex.

2012 – Dinosaur footprints first reported
Philip Hadland published the first account of dinosaur footprints from the Folkestone Formation. Subsequent work on both loose blocks and in-situ surfaces established a more extensive track record.

2017 – East Wear Bay footprint recovered
Steve Friedrich found the three-toed dinosaur footprint from East Wear Bay that is now documented by Folkestone Museum. It provides a tangible example of the terrestrial animals recorded in the older sandy succession.

2021 – Diverse dinosaur tracks interpreted
A study by Hadland and colleagues described six footprint morphotypes from the Folkestone shore, attributed to theropods, ornithopods and possibly ankylosaurs. Their setting indicates very shallow coastal conditions, at times exposed to the air.

2025–2026 – Sea defences reshape the western Warren frontage
A programme of walkway repairs, drainage work and added rock armour required a prolonged beach closure. The works changed access to this active landslide shore and the relationship between protected frontage and natural foreshore exposures.

2026 – A new Gault coelacanth named
Macropoma gombessae was named from the Folkestone specimen purchased in 1885. X-ray tomography revealed its skull anatomy, while microscopic fossils in the matrix constrained its Late Albian age. The discovery adds an early record of the family that includes living coelacanths.

References
BGS GB3D Type Fossils: GSM109049 syntype
Pereda-Suberbiola & Barrett (1999), systematic review of Acanthopholis material
Wilkinson (2006), The holostratigraphy of the Albian Stage of the United Kingdom and its continental shelf
Hopson, Wilkinson & Woods (2008), A stratigraphical framework for the Lower Cretaceous of England
Cripps, Newell & Woods (2024), UK Stratigraphical Framework Series: Lower Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian), OR/23/035
BGS: Folkestone Warren landslide case study
Norton et al. (2026), Oldest Cretaceous latimeriid elucidates cranial evolution
Neale Monks (2020), Fossils of the Gault Clay
Neale Monks (2017), Understanding heteromorph ammonites
Folkestone & Hythe District Council: Visiting the district

Copt Point, East Cliff and East Wear Bay/Warren foreshore; the Warren Chalk is a separate, partly landslipped exposure system from the Gault type section.

LOWER GREENSAND GROUP

The sandstone shore around Copt Point belongs to the upper part of this older marine group. It must not be confused with an Upper Greensand Formation above the Gault: the latter is absent here.

Folkestone Formation

Cross-bedded sand and sandstone alternate with harder cemented layers and thin phosphatic horizons. The East Cliff succession is a historical composite assembled from separated exposures, not a single continuously accessible modern cliff. The bed labels below use the BGS FF-EC inventory; Casey’s original numbering differs. Thicknesses are measurements in that published composite, not the height of a present exposure. No formal member is established for this Wealden succession.

FF-EC 1 (0.61 m)
Shelly, clay-rich greensand with minute black chert pebbles overlies a pebbly glauconitic silty sand containing phosphate nodules. The underlying nodules include material assigned to the Aptian jacobi Zone.

FF-EC 2 (0–0.05 m)
A discontinuous concentration of phosphate nodules and small black chert pebbles contains abundant oysters recorded historically as Exogyra.

FF-EC 3 (0.54 m)
A resistant grey-green sandstone is cemented by carbonate and contains glauconite. It separates the two thin oyster-bearing phosphatic layers.

FF-EC 4 (0–0.05 m)
A second locally developed nodule-and-chert-pebble layer contains common oysters recorded as Exogyra.

FF-EC 5 (0.42 m)
Green, clay-rich sand succeeds the upper thin phosphatic pebble layer.

FF-EC 6 (0.37 m)
Greenish sandy mudstone introduces a finer-grained interval beneath the next harder sandstone.

FF-EC 7 (0.15 m)
Sponge-spicule-bearing sandstone is locally cherty and porcelain-like in texture.

FF-EC 8 (approximately 2.00 m)
Yellow-green clay-rich sand shows iron staining and forms a relatively thick softer interval.

FF-EC 9 (0–0.08 m)
An impersistent spicular sandstone becomes porcelain-like and cherty in places; local absence is part of the published record.

FF-EC 10 (1.32 m)
Another iron-stained yellow-green clay-rich sand separates thin resistant sandstone layers.

FF-EC 11 (0.23–0.31 m)
Spicular sandstone is locally porcelain-like and cherty. This is FF-EC 11, not Casey’s Bed 11.

FF-EC 12 (0.23–0.31 m)
A hard grey calcareous sandstone lies above the spicular sandstone of FF-EC 11.

FF-EC 13 (0.91 m)
Yellowish greensand forms the softer bed beneath a very thin, discontinuous sandstone.

FF-EC 14 (0–0.08 m)
A locally absent spicular sandstone contains porcelain-like and cherty portions.

FF-EC 15 (0.28 m)
Yellowish greensand separates the thin spicular layer from the overlying hard calcareous sandstone.

FF-EC 16 (0.42 m)
Hard grey sandstone has a calcareous cement and forms a resistant horizon.

FF-EC 17 (0.74 m)
Yellowish greensand resumes above the calcareous sandstone.

FF-EC 18 (0–0.13 m)
An impersistent spicular sandstone is locally cherty and porcelain-like.

FF-EC 19 (0.35 m)
A thin yellowish greensand intervenes between spicular sandstones.

FF-EC 20 (0.15–0.25 m)
Spicular sandstone again forms a harder, locally cherty horizon.

FF-EC 21 (1.14 m)
Yellowish greensand makes a thicker soft interval between the thin sandstone markers.

FF-EC 22 (0.35 m)
Yellowish greensand includes lenses of sandstone and broken bivalve-shell material.

FF-EC 23 (0.23 m)
A spicular sandstone is partly cherty and porcelain-like.

FF-EC 24 (3.05 m)
A comparatively thick yellowish greensand contains small iron-rich nodules.

FF-EC 25 (0.36 m)
Cemented calcareous grit interrupts the more weakly consolidated sandy beds.

FF-EC 26 (0.66 m)
Coarse yellow sand and grit terminate the lower part of the published Folkestone Formation log.

FF-EC 27 (0.10–0.20 m)
The Sonneratia kitchini Bed contains small dark phosphate nodules in coarse yellow sand. Sonneratia kitchini and Douvilleiceras mammillatum are recorded from this horizon.

FF-EC 28 (0.66 m)
Coarse pebbly sand and grit overlie the Sonneratia kitchini Bed.

FF-EC 29 (0.38 m)
Yellow sand and grit are strongly cemented.

FF-EC 30 (0.92 m)
Yellow sand is slightly glauconitic and separates the two indurated sandy intervals.

FF-EC 31 (0.31–0.46 m)
Coarse yellow gritty sand is secondarily cemented towards its top. Its suggested floridum Subzone age is uncertain because diagnostic fossils were lacking.

FF-EC 32 (0.15 m)
The lower part of the Main Mammillatum Bed is a phosphatic nodule concentration within gritty silty sand, locally hardened by later cement. Many fossils are reworked from older subzones, alongside indigenous Protohoplites, Sonneratia dutempleana and Otohoplites guersanti.

FF-EC 33 (0.15–0.41 m)
The upper part of the Main Mammillatum Bed consists of grey clay-rich sand and grit, partly consolidated into secondary concretions. It should not be merged with its underlying nodule concentration.

FF-EC 34 (0.43–0.61 m)
Coarse yellow glauconitic sand contains grey clay-filled burrows and grades upward into grey, pyritic, glauconitic sandy clay. Otohoplites waltoni helps constrain its Albian age.

FF-EC 35 (0.15–0.33 m)
The Sulphur Band consists of large grey phosphate nodules coated with pyrite in pyritic sandy clay. Its ammonites may include reworked material: mixing is one possible explanation for conflicting subzonal age assignments.

FF-EC 36 (0.28–0.36 m)
The Greensand Seam is strongly glauconitic sandy clay, becoming shelly upwards, with phosphate concentrations at its base, middle and top. The basal nodules include Pseudosonneratia (Isohoplites) steinmanni; fossils near the top indicate the earliest Middle Albian Lyelliceras lyelli Subzone. This transitional unit has historically been allocated differently around the Folkestone Formation–Gault boundary.

SELBORNE GROUP

At Folkestone this group is represented by the Gault Formation. There is no intervening Upper Greensand Formation between the Gault and the overlying Chalk.

Gault Formation

The Gault is a fossil-rich marine mudstone succession of Middle and Late Albian age. Its darker, less calcareous lower division contrasts with the paler and more marly upper beds. Lower Gault and Upper Gault are used here as traditional divisions, not invented formal members. Beds I–XIII belong to the historical Copt Point scheme; their boundaries do not generally coincide with ammonite subzone boundaries. The published composite totals about 40 m, whereas boreholes and displaced ground in the wider Warren record different thicknesses.

Gault Bed I (3.30–3.40 m)
The lowest Gault is glauconitic and locally gritty. Phosphatic seams occur near the base, including a septarian nodule level about 0.3 m up and the ammonite-rich Dentatus Nodule Bed about 0.5–0.6 m above the base. Upward, gritty grey mudstone gives way to darker, slightly silty shelly mudstone. The upper dark, slightly silty shelly mudstone is approximately 1.57 m thick in the detailed log, above roughly 1.22 m of gritty grey mudstone.

Gault Bed II (1.57 m)
Dark mudstone contains partly pyritised, crushed shell debris, with fawn-coloured clay lenses higher up. A basal phosphate-and-shell seam is about 5 cm thick and another phosphate concentration lies about 0.7 m above the base.

Gault Bed III (1.83 m)
Fawn-grey mudstone contains shell-rich seams, partly phosphatised fossils and occasional harder iron-stained marl lenses. Its lower boundary is transitional into Bed II.

Gault Bed IV (0.15–0.17 m)
This thin dark shelly mudstone has a buff phosphatic layer with partly phosphatised bivalves at its base and a darker phosphatic concentration at the top. These bounding layers make it distinct despite its small thickness. The basal nodule layer is about 25 mm thick and the upper concentration about 50 mm thick in the published section.

Gault Bed V (0.46–0.48 m)
Burrowed grey shelly mudstone contains dispersed brown phosphate nodules.

Gault Bed VI (0.31 m)
Grey mudstone contains paler lenses and pervasive burrowing, the burrows filled by darker mud.

Gault Bed VII (2.44 m)
Grey mudstone with shell-rich seams, pyritised fossils and scattered phosphatic nodules forms the top of the traditional Lower Gault.

Gault Bed VIII (0.38–0.43 m)
A thin shelly grey mudstone marks the base of the traditional Upper Gault and rests across a break in deposition. Phosphate seams occur at both boundaries. The ribbed inoceramid recorded historically as Inoceramus sulcatus is abundant.

Gault Bed IX (2.85 m)
Pale marly mudstone contains harder marlstone lenses 0.75–1.70 m above its base. The upper boundary includes an indurated phosphatic seam.

Gault Bed X (1.55 m)
Pale marly, partly indurated mudstone contains one phosphate seam approximately 0.8 m above the base and another at the top.

Gault Bed XI (10.67 m)
A thick interval of pale marly mudstone begins with a phosphatic nodule horizon. It is one of the major upper divisions of the historical type succession.

Gault Bed XII (0.99 m)
Pale mudstone is distinctly rich in glauconite and contains scattered phosphatic nodules above a basal phosphate layer. Slipped Glauconitic Marl from the Chalk has historically been confused with this bed, so colour alone is not sufficient for identification.

Gault Bed XIII (13.71 m in the historical composite)
The highest Gault changes from bluish-grey marly clay low down to mottled grey and fawn marly mudstone above, with glauconite concentrated at the base. Landslipping complicates its upper contact, and the complete historical thickness must not be assumed to be visible at Copt Point today.

Upper Gault vertebrate horizon
The matrix of the museum coelacanth Macropoma gombessae indicates the upper Albian BC26 nannofossil interval, approximately Beds XI to basal XII. This is a modern age assignment of an old specimen, not a bed position recorded when it was collected.

CHALK GROUP

The bedrock was deposited in a marine setting during the Late Cretaceous. Fine carbonate sediment is interspersed with clay-rich marl seams, fossil-rich horizons and surfaces recording pauses or erosion on the sea floor.

GREY CHALK SUBGROUP

The account follows the exposed succession from older to younger beds. Historic Lower, Middle and Upper Chalk divisions do not coincide with all the modern formation boundaries.

West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation

The older Chalk of the Warren consists of alternating marl-rich and limestone-rich beds. In the eastern Warren, wave erosion cuts through both rotated landslip blocks and the undisturbed succession farther east. A fossil collected from a slipped block therefore need not represent the bed directly beneath the present beach.

Glauconitic Marl Member

The basal Chalk rests on a burrowed Gault surface. The eastern Warren rotated slab preserves an unusually thick glauconitic succession, about 7 m in the published section, with sponges including Stauronema carteri. This value belongs to that measured slab, not to every exposure along East Wear Bay.

M1 — basal Chalk contact
The lowest marker is the burrowed contact with the Gault. It records the change from Albian mudstone deposition to the earliest Cenomanian Chalk succession.

M2 — top of the Glauconitic Marl
A thin limestone defines the upper marker of the member. The published eastern Warren section yielded Neostlingoceras carcitanense at this level, a useful earliest Cenomanian ammonite.

West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation

Above the Glauconitic Marl Member, the eastern Warren rotated slab continues through the following limestone and marl markers of the parent West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation.

M3 — massive burrowed limestone
Above the basal member, a thick, heavily burrowed limestone contains three-dimensionally preserved ammonites and inoceramid bivalves, including abundant Schloenbachia varians.

M4 — silty marl and erosion surface
A dark silty marl with small phosphatic intraclasts overlies pale marly chalk marked by contrasting Thalassinoides burrows. This surface is a useful lower Cenomanian correlation marker.

M5 — thin limestone
A thin limestone provides the local equivalent of the marker called The Rib in the Sussex reference succession. The correlation does not make the Sussex thickness a Folkestone measurement.

M6 — paired spongiferous limestones
Two closely spaced thin sponge-rich limestones cap the interval correlated with The Bank. Their distinctive pairing permits correlation beyond the Warren.

Zig Zag Chalk Formation

Higher Cenomanian chalk is present in the Warren landslip complex, including fossiliferous basal beds faulted against the eastern rotated slab. The complete detailed succession towards Abbot’s Cliff and Lydden Spout is not an intact Copt Point log.

WHITE CHALK SUBGROUP

Younger Chalk is preserved in the Warren landslip complex as well as in the cliff behind it. Its formation identity can survive rotation, but its position on the beach is no longer a simple guide to stratigraphic height.

Holywell Nodular Chalk Formation

The rotated block known as the Horse’s Head in the eastern Warren is specifically identified as Holywell Nodular Chalk. This hard, nodular and locally shell-rich formation belongs to the younger Chalk succession and should not be merged with the basal Grey Chalk merely because both occur at beach level.

Plenus Marls Member

A separate slipped block behind the eastern Warren sea wall, recorded at TR263384, exposes the greenish marl-and-chalk succession at the base of the Holywell formation. The individual Plenus beds were clearly visible in the published account, but that record does not establish their present exposure after later erosion and works.

Holywell Nodular Chalk Formation

Above the Plenus Marls, hard nodular chalk forms the remainder of this formation. Rotation and landslipping bring blocks to shore level; these are displaced pieces of the younger cliff succession rather than beds conformably overlying the nearby Gault beach exposure.

New Pit Chalk Formation

BGS identifies New Pit Chalk above the Holywell formation within the Warren cliff succession. Its comparatively smoother chalk is part of the landslide source rocks, but the full numbered marl succession documented at Aker’s Steps is not an exact Warren beach log.

Younger superficial cover: outside the Chalk Group
Residual clay and flint gravel overlie the Chalk and can enter the landslip debris. These much younger materials must be separated from the Cretaceous bedrock and from modern beach shingle.

Clay-with-flints Formation

The Clay-with-flints cover is a younger residual superficial deposit resting on the Chalk, composed of clay-rich material and flints produced and redistributed during weathering. Its occurrence above the Warren Chalk does not make it part of the Chalk Group.

References

Wilkinson (2006), The holostratigraphy of the Albian Stage of the United Kingdom and its continental shelf.

Hopson, Wilkinson & Woods (2008), A stratigraphical framework for the Lower Cretaceous of England.

Cripps, Newell & Woods (2024), UK Stratigraphical Framework Series: Lower Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian), OR/23/035.

Mortimore, Wood & Gallois (2001), British Upper Cretaceous Stratigraphy, Folkestone to Kingsdown account.

BGS: Folkestone Warren landslide case study.

Hadland, Friedrich, Lagnaoui & Martill (2021), The youngest dinosaur footprints from England and their palaeoenvironmental implications.

Hart and colleagues (2020), Foraminifera of the Gault Clay Formation: An update.

Norton et al. (2026), Oldest Cretaceous latimeriid elucidates cranial evolution.