All landscapes are built on rock: from hard stone for building with, to the softest clay or sand. Each piece of rock is a storehouse of prehistorical information; even a simple pebble from the garden has its own complex tale to tell. Geology is the great detective science that can unlock these secrets. In this entertaining and eye-opening book, the authors take a deep dive – quite literally – into their home county of Essex.
We are all living in an ice age, an ongoing event that has hugely affected Essex over the last 3 million years. Yet this county was born more than 500 million years ago. Our story begins when the land we know as Essex was part of a large continent close to the South Pole, tracing the geological processes that continue to shape the countryside around us. The form of the land, boulders on village greens, road cuttings, cliffs, stones in church walls – they can all bring geology to light in unexpected and fascinating ways.
Aimed at a general readership with no scientific background, chapters progress from fundamentals to intricate details of geological investigations and cutting-edge research. Richly illustrated with photographs and colour diagrams, here the geology of a county is visualised and brought to life as never before, along with pertinent environmental insights in the light of climate change that is happening now.
Author(s): Ian Mercer, Ros Mercer
Publisher: Pelagic Publishing
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 659
City: London
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface to the second edition
Preface to the first edition
Foreword
Acknowledgements
1 Reconstructing Essex
Geology: the great detective science
Geological time
The importance of Essex geology
2 The rocks of Essex
Seeing Essex rocks
The land beneath the soil: geological maps
The shaping of the Essex landscape
Digging into Essex
Naming rock layers: decoding the jargon
Time gaps
3 The deep history of Essex
Hidden history: the oldest rocks beneath Essex
Dinosaur island
4 The geological structure of Essex
Down to the basement
A story of tilting and squeezing: the London Basin
5 The drowning of the island
A rise in world sea levels
The Chalk Sea
The Chalk in Essex
Life in the Chalk Sea
The origin of flint
6 Seashores and swamps
A great extinction
Edgeland Essex
The Lambeth Group
Pebble beds and shell banks
7 Palm trees and crocodiles
Subtropical Essex
Harwich Formation
The London Clay
Shallow seas to deltas
8 Giant sharks and shell banks
A time gap and a cooling climate
Crag seas and shell banks
Red Crag in Essex
Chillesford Sand and River Thames
9 Ice age Essex
Time and change
Ice age Essex in three episodes
Climate change and ice age geology
Ice age River Thames: the Pre-Anglian Kesgrave Sand and Gravel
River terraces
Glaciers and ice sheets: the Anglian Glaciation across Essex
Around the ice edge
The Post-Anglian: a major diversion
10 Looking into the Essex landscape
After the ice
Geology, soil and farming
The dynamic landscape
Landslips
Earthquakes
Stories in the Essex landscape: looking back into time
Caring for the evidence: geoconservation and Essex geological sites
11 Uncovering Essex geology
The Essex geology detectives
12 Rock and people
Economic geology: what we take out of the ground
Development of water supplies in Essex
13 The future of Essex rock
Climate, rock and recycling
Sea defences and the future: the Naze example
The next glaciation
Beyond the ice
Sites and views of Essex
Geological collections and displays
Index
Maps and charts
About the authors
Back Cover
