Nolton Haven Fossil Hunting

1916 – Detailed local plant and section records
The Geological Survey memoir published separate Rickets Head coal-associated and Black Cliff tip-heap plant lists, with locality registers and descriptions of sandstone, coal, shale and faulted structure.

1934 – Non-marine bivalves recorded
Trueman reported the Rickets Head non-marine bivalves, establishing material that would later be reassessed in greater detail.

1960 – Bivalve assemblages reinterpreted
Jenkins examined the Rickets Head shell beds, retained the distinction between horizons below the sandstone and assigned the lower assemblage to the Phillipsii Zone rather than inferring the Tenuis Zone from uncommon forms.

1962 – Coastal correlation revised
A revised interpretation of the wider coastal succession developed the fault-block correlations later used in the conservation synthesis; the reconstructed order remains distinct from a continuous local exposure.

1992 – Younger beds recognised in the wider site
Plant evidence identified younger strata at North Maidenhall Point within the broader geological conservation site. This was a separate locality result, not a first discovery of the Rickets Head rooting structures.

1996 – Integrated conservation assessment
The published assessment brought together the broader coastal structure, flora, coal horizons and depositional interpretation, while acknowledging uncertainty in correlations between fault blocks.

2002 – Protected coastal interests documented
The statutory Newgale–Little Haven Coast citation documented the combined Carboniferous, structural and glacial conservation interests of the wider coast.

Two visitor localities within a much larger scientific site. The main bay and Rickets Head are distinct. The conservation account’s ‘Nolton Haven’ succession extends along the Druidston–Newgale coast and combines five fault blocks. Its approximate 600 m reconstruction, the citation’s roughly 700 m and another study’s approximately 609 m have different scopes and correlations; none is a measured thickness of this beach or Rickets Head.

WARWICKSHIRE GROUP

Pennant Sandstone Formation

Mapped identity and age. BGS identifies Pennant Sandstone at the saved main-bay point. Warwickshire is the correct group name; the formation is not a subunit of South Wales Coal Measures Group. Upper Carboniferous/Pennsylvanian age is supported. Bolsovian floras dominate the studied broader succession, while younger Westphalian D/Asturian evidence belongs higher in the regional reconstruction at North Maidenhall Point. No exact Llynfi Member assignment or universally applicable numerical age is adopted for these two visitor points.

River and floodplain deposits. The broader conservation account interprets channel and point-bar sandstones, overbank and crevasse-splay deposits, plant-bearing fine sediment and coal-swamp intervals. Westward palaeoflow was recognised in the studied system. The statutory citation’s broader deltaic and south-derived sediment account reflects a different scale of interpretation, not a reason to impose one universal direction on every bed.

Main bay: historical local horizons. Near the old chapel at the upper haven, the survey recorded a coal smut overlain by 15 ft of shale with ironstone. About 100 yd south-west of the chapel, the lowest thick grey pennant-like sandstone lay above a probable thin coal marked by a cave-like hollow, with coal streaks and plant stems near the sandstone base. A further 100 yd south-west, a clay or shale band was described. These are located historical observations, not confirmation of present exposure or a total sandstone thickness derived from a figure’s width.

Rickets Head Vein. The 1916 account describes two thin coals separated by a few inches of shale below sandstone. No exact coal thickness is inferred. Northward from the haven, beds were recorded dipping 30–40° west, with a sharp north-west-plunging anticline. Later fault-block interpretations explain why repetition must be separated from true stratigraphic thickness.

Rickets Head historical plant assemblage. Coal-associated shales yielded Annularia sphenophylloides, Bothrodendron minutifolium, Calamites cf. undulatus, Lepidostrobus anthemis, Linopteris münsteri, Mariopteris muricata, Neuropteris heterophylla, Neuropteris cf. rarinervis, Sphenophyllum majus and Sphenopteris sp. These are historical names with the original qualifiers preserved. Appendix locality 101 links the record to Pem.21 SE, Wλ4 and J.M.596–634; the register range is associated with the locality, not individually allocated to each taxon.

Black Cliff tip-heap plants. The distinct spoil record comprises Annularia sphenophylloides, Linopteris obliqua and Neuropteris heterophylla. Appendix locality 100 is Pem.21 SE, Wλ1 and 2, with J.M.566–595. These are not in-situ main-bay vouchers. The inland Folly/Hookes pit fauna is also a separate record and is not transferred into the coastal find list.

Large rooting structures. The original Rickets Head photographs and field account document Stigmaria-type organs in large sandstone boulders. These are arborescent-lycopsid rooting systems with rootlet scars, not simply ordinary tree wood. The original Stigmaria ficoides identification should be applied only where preserved features support it, without naming the whole parent plant from its root alone.

Shell bed 93 ft below the Rickets Head Sandstone. Jenkins described dark, strongly sheared shale above seat earth containing crushed Anthraconauta, Spirorbis, insect wings and plant fragments. Anthraconauta phillipsii and forms aff. phillipsii predominate; approximately 15% were referred to cf. tenuis. One incomplete true A. tenuis was excluded from the plotted dimensions. The assemblage was assigned to the Phillipsii Zone, explicitly rejecting a Tenuis Zone inference from these specimens. The 93 ft is an offset below the sandstone, not the shell-bed thickness.

Shell band 12 ft below the sandstone. The upper of two shell bands contains ‘solid’ ironstone moulds of Anthraconaia in dark shale, with rare Anthraconauta phillipsii. The variable Anthraconaia was described cautiously as sp. nov. cf. pruvosti?, not as a confidently established named species. The 12 ft again denotes an offset. The illustrated comparison specimens and scatter plots do not make Rickets Head the type locality of A. phillipsii, A. tenuis or Anthraconaia pruvosti.

What the specimen measurements mean. Jenkins’s tables quantify variation in the sampled shells, not bed thickness, guaranteed fossil size or universal identification thresholds. The lower-bed sample has lengths 3.3–18.5 mm with a mean of 10.8 mm; the upper assemblage’s measured lengths range from 8.7 to 25.0 mm with a mean of 16.3 mm. Other ratios and plotted dimensions depend on their stated sample sizes and exclusion of distorted specimens. The figure-caption specimen letters include an apparent repeated letter, so no unverified museum accession or corrected printed label is invented.

Wider reconstructed order. The conservation figure places the Nolton Haven block and Cliff Vein below a fault-separated Trefrane Cliff Colliery–Rickets Head block with Black Cliff and Rickets Head veins, then South Maidenhall Point, Druidston Haven and North Haven, and North Maidenhall Point, each separated by faults in the reconstruction. This is neither a walking itinerary nor a continuous exposed log. The nineteen coals and four named seams belong to the broader coastal composite, not nineteen visible seams in the main bay.

Other local horizons kept separate. At the south-eastern cliff turn and old quarry, a thin coal smut over ironstone-bearing shale was traced towards the shore near an arch, then to North Madoc’s Haven and about 200 yd farther south in a west-plunging syncline. The roughly six-inch coal belongs to that Madoc’s locality, not the Rickets Head Vein. Likewise, sandy boulder clay described between Nolton and Druidston reaches 20 ft at Madoc’s Haven; Druidston’s thicker shelly till and fauna are not assigned to Nolton’s plant-bearing boulders.

Correlation and source limits. The broad flora supports comparison with the Rhondda Beds, but that is not an independently established member assignment at every visitor point. Younger North Maidenhall plants and the North Haven shell bands retain their separate provenance. The 1916 regional coal columns contain unknown breaks and obsolete correlations; some older Newgale values are vertical distances uncorrected for dip. They and historical 4,000–6,000 ft fault estimates are not treated as modern Nolton thicknesses. The 1962 sequence paper, later sedimentological originals and the full 1992 plant paper were not recovered directly; their synthesis in the conservation account is distinguished from firsthand inspection.

References. Cantrill and colleagues (1916), The geology of the South Wales Coalfield, Part XII: the country around Milford, pp.111–137,140–141,155–157 and168–170, figs.23–24; Jenkins (1960), Palaeontology 3,104–123, especially pp.119–122 and figs.12–16; Cleal and Thomas (1996), Geological Conservation Review 11, Nolton Haven and fig.4.12; NRW Newgale–Little Haven Coast citation (2002); BGS Pennant Sandstone Lexicon and mapping.