Brighton to Newhaven Cliffs
| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 |
|
 Location within East Sussex
|
|
| Area of Search | East Sussex |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | TQ390015 |
| Coordinates | 50°47′46″N 0°01′37″W / 50.796°N 0.027°WCoordinates: 50°47′46″N 0°01′37″W / 50.796°N 0.027°W |
| Interest | Biological and Geological |
| Area | 167.5 ha (414 acres) |
| Notification | 1951 |
| Natural England website | |
Brighton to Newhaven Cliffs is a 167.5 hectares (414 acres) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in East Sussex, England. The site was notified in 1986 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The site includes two sites before known as Black Rock and Peacehaven cliffs to Castle Hill.
Brighton to Newhaven Cliffs provides the best and most extensive exposure of an important chronological fossil site in England. The gentle folding and the ease of access to the cliff exposures make this an important collecting site for faunas of the upper Santonian and lower Campanian. It is an increasingly important reference section for the Upper Cretaceous. Black Rock is a key for the study of Quaternary Stratigraphy and has attracted scientific interest for over 150 years. The modern sea cliff at Black Rock obliquely intersects a fossil cliff and abrasion platform cut in the Upper Chalk.
The platform is overlain by raised beach deposits of sand and shingle which contain shell fragments which amongst other methods have given the beach and cliff a general date from the second half of the last (Ipswichian) interglacial. The angle between the beach and the old cliff is filled by great quantities of coarse chalk rubble apparently derived from the weathering and erosion of the cliff in Devensian times. Chalk muds and fine chalk gravel and grit, are banked against the rubble on the west and may represent fan deposits. The muds contain appreciable quantities of loess and are overlain by further, coarser solifluction deposits. The chalk rubble and solifluction deposits are particularly notable for their fossil remains of many Devensian mammals, including Elephas primigenius, Tichorhinus antiquitatus and Equus caballus.
...
Wikipedia