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Cromer Forest Bed

Cromer Forest-bed Formation
Stratigraphic range: Early Middle Pleistocene 0.8–0.5 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Cromer Forest-bed Formation exposed at the base of the West Runton Cliffs
Type	Geological formation
Unit of	Dunwich Group
Sub-units	Sheringham Member, Runton Member, West Runton Member, and Bacton Member
Underlies	Middle Pleistocene glacial deposits
Overlies	Wroxham Crag Formation or unconformity with Chalk Group
Thickness	6-to-8-metre (20 to 26 ft)
Lithology
Primary	sands and silts
Other	peat, mud, silty marl
Location
Coordinates	52°56′28″N 1°15′11″E / 52.941°N 1.253°E / 52.941; 1.253
Region	Norfolk
Country	England
Type section
Named for	Cromer
Named by	Clement Reid
Location	The coast of North Norfolk from WeybournetoHappisburgh
Year defined	1882
Country	England

The Cromer Forest-bed Formation, sometimes known as the Cromer Forest Bed, is a geological formation in Norfolk, England. It consists of river gravels, estuary and floodplain sediments predominantly silt, sand, and muds as well as peat along the coast of northern Norfolk.^[1] It is the type locality for the Cromerian Stage of the Pleistocene between 0.8 and 0.5 million years ago.^[2] The deposit itself range varies in age from about 0.8 to 0.5 million years ago. It is about 6-to-8-metre (20 to 26 ft) thick and is exposed in cliff section near the town of West Runton.

For over a century this formation, named after the local town of Cromer, has been famous for its assemblage of fossil mammal remains, containing the diverse remains of numerous taxa, including deer,^[3] carnivorans^[4] and birds.^[5] Although most of the forest bed is now obscured by coastal defence, the Cromer Forest-bed Formation continues to be eroded and is rich in fossils including the skeletal remains of the West Runton Mammoth which was discovered in 1990.^[6][7][8][9]

The oldest human footprints outside Africa, the Happisburgh footprints as well as handaxes and bison bones with cut marks were also found in layers considered to belong to this deposit near the town of Happisburgh.^[10]

• Cromerian Stage
• Happisburgh
• Pakefield

• Bowen, D.Q., 1978, Quaternary geology: a stratigraphic framework for multidisciplinary work. Pergamon Press, Oxford, United Kingdom. 221 pp. ISBN 978-0-08-020409-3
• West, R.G., 1980, The pre-glacial Pleistocene of the Norfolk and Suffolk Coasts Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-21962-0
• Ehlers, J., P. L. Gibbard, and J. Rose, eds., 1991, Glacial deposits in Great Britain and Ireland Balkema, Rotterdam. 580 pp ISBN 978-90-6191-875-2
• Mangerud, J., J. Ehlers, and P. Gibbard, 2004, Quaternary Glaciations: Extent and Chronology 1: Part I Europe, Elsevier, Amsterdam. ISBN 0-444-51462-7
• Sibrava, V., Bowen, D.Q, and Richmond, G.M., 1986, Quaternary Glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere, Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 5, pp. 1–514.

Gibbard, P.L., S. Boreham, K.M. Cohen and A. Moscariello, 2007, Global correlation tables for the Quaternary, Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England.

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