Selsey, West Street: evaluation of historical material and recent field investigations (original) (raw)
Related papers
The offshore Quaternary sediment bodies of the English Channel and its Western Approaches
Journal of Quaternary Science, 2003
After a short review of present-day surficial sediments on the sea-floor of the English Channel and its Western Approaches, this paper summarises recent results on the Present–Quaternary sandy accumulations (tidal bank systems), based on sea-floor imaging, very high-resolution seismic surveys and a few piston cores. The English Channel, a typical funnel-shaped tidal shelf, is presently starved of terrigenous sediments. Most of mobile sediments at the sea-floor are autochthonous, either skeletal carbonates or siliciclastic sands reworked from old littoral deposits or incised valley fills. Three zones are considered: 1the Central (and western Central) Channel, which is a bedload parting zone characterised by a pebbly lag making up the sole of the Quaternary sediments throughout the shelf area;2the Eastern Channel, a flood-dominated area characterised by medium to fine siliciclastic sands, mainly of aeolian periglacial origin;3the Western Approaches, an ebb-dominated area with a polygenic sediment cover characterised by coarse, carbonate-rich, gravelly to muddy sands of marine to glaciomarine origin, with a diachronous faunal content. These sediments are sourced by reworking of a former littoral barrier or incised valley fills. The seismic stratigraphy of Quaternary sediment accumulations (10–50 m) points to the predominant control of tidal dynamics, together with the general interplay between the Channel morphology and the sea-level story. The thickest deposits in the Eastern Channel and Western Approaches are built up into bank systems. Whereas the interpretation of the active Eastern Channel banks finds a general agreement, the ‘moribund’ banks in the Western Approaches (i.e. the southern Celtic Banks) remains under debate, owing to the lack of long cores. In our hypothesis, both systems were built up during the last post-glacial sea-level rise. The Celtic Banks would represent the tidal transgressive systems tract whereas the Eastern Channel banks correspond to the highstand systems tract. The architecture of both bank systems is studied from two examples, the Bassure de Baas bank in the Eastern Channel and the Kaiser Bank in the Western Approaches. Both examples show transgressive features. The Bassure de Baas exhibits from base to top: an estuarine mouth barrier, a wave erosion surface, a shoreface bank and finally a ‘classic’ tidal bank. By contrast, the Kaiser Bank consists of the offshore reworking of fully marine deposits. Its base would correspond to the amalgamation of the last glacial sea-level fall with a strong tidal ravinement surface. From base to top, the bank underwent: tidal-bar accretion, very large dune-field aggradation, perched-channels incision, storm erosion and deposition. This interpretation still needs to be modelled. For instance, the channels perched at the top of the Kaiser Bank point to an erosional peak, which could be related to a tidal resonance episode within the Western Approaches basin. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.the Central (and western Central) Channel, which is a bedload parting zone characterised by a pebbly lag making up the sole of the Quaternary sediments throughout the shelf area;the Eastern Channel, a flood-dominated area characterised by medium to fine siliciclastic sands, mainly of aeolian periglacial origin;the Western Approaches, an ebb-dominated area with a polygenic sediment cover characterised by coarse, carbonate-rich, gravelly to muddy sands of marine to glaciomarine origin, with a diachronous faunal content.
Howie, F.M.P. and Ealey, P.J. 2011. Coastal tufa and speleothems of Prussia and Stackhouse coves, south-west Cornwall. Geoscience in South-West England, 12, 278-287.
Sedimentology and stratigraphy of a tidal sand bank in the southern North Sea
Marine Geology, 1999
A set of 125 vibrocores collected on the basis of a dense grid of high and very high resolution seismic coverage over a Ž . tidal sand bank the Middelkerke Bank provides a unique opportunity to reconstruct the stratigraphy and sedimentary facies succession of such a large tidal sand body. Five sedimentary facies are distinguished. They range from clay to pebble and display various types of bedding and lithologies corresponding to different depositional environments. A succession of four Late Quaternary units are defined on the basis of the stratigraphic framework given by the seismic grid. The first unit represents the infill of a palaeovalley system by tidally influenced sedimentary facies. It is followed by extensive and thick lagoonal or sub-tidal deposits. The third unit reveals the development of a landward prograding storm-dominated sand bar. This unit is dominated by clean fine sand. The last unit corresponds to the present-day tidal sand-bank. It shows the typical Ž . offshore tidal sand bank facies cross-bedded sand prograding in an offshore direction. Like other banks located in a more offshore position, the Middelkerke Bank is a composite bank incorporating facies which do not occur in 'classic' tidal sand banks. q . 0025-3227r99r$ -see front matter q 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
New archaeological recording on the beach at Medmerry, near Selsey, West Sussex
Sussex Archaeological Collections, 2020
This report presents and interprets results obtained from shoreline monitoring and recording on the eroding shoreline of Medmerry, near Selsey, West Sussex, by the Chichester and District Archaeology Society (CDAS) from 2014 onwards. This is a community project which has received strong support from professional partners. The results show former land use and include Bronze Age burnt mounds, one of them including the base of a wattle fence; the Iron Age placing of a man’s body on a wooden structure; stationary fisheries dating to around 1500–1650; land claim and drainage from at least the 17th century; the casting-up of wreckrelated artefacts, probably in the 18th–19th centuries; drainage and farming, including hay production, in the 19th and early 20th centuries; recreational use in the inter-war years of the 20th century; military use in the Second World War and up to 1954. Coastal archaeological monitoring is an open-ended process that does not have a clear end date, so it is probable that further finds will be made in the future, as erosion proceeds. The involvement of CDAS has enabled rapid interventions for recording immediately after storms, which is rarely possible for a professional organisation. As a consequence, archaeological sites which would otherwise have gone unrecorded have been documented. Monitoring will continue.
An atlas of the palaeolandscapes of the Southern North Sea
… and Simon Finch …, 2007
The preceding papers in this volume have provided the essential background to the results of the NSPP mapping programme. Here, we need only be concerned with a description of the analytical processes that led to the identification of features within the available seismic data and a description and interpretation of these features. A provisional interpretation of the results will be presented in the final chapter.