The BGS Lexicon of Named Rock Units — Result Details

Swineden Sand Bed

Computer Code: SWDEN Preferred Map Code: notEntered
Status Code: Full
Age range: Wolstonian Stage (QO) — Wolstonian Stage (QO)
Lithological Description: Weakly organic sands. Greyish brown, silty, fine-medium-coarse grained, weakly stratified, containing rare granules and pebbles of weathered felsite and charcoal fragments. A seam of black to dark brown, laminated, organic mud (0.01-0.05m) occurs at the base of the unit and drapes the eroded surface of the underlying Kirkhill Palaeosol Bed. A C 14 date of >47, 360 BP (SRR-2416) has been obtained from the organic mud. Palynological analysis indicates that the bed contains recylcled arboreal pollen (probably derived from earlier soil horizons) together with the pollen of grasses and heather suggesting that the bed was formed under cool climatic conditions in an open treeless environment. Interpreted as slope wash deposits derived from contemporaneous surface soils.
Definition of Lower Boundary: The basal boundary of the bed is a sharp undulatory erosion surface with an amplitude of up to 0.2m developed on white sand of the Kirkhill Palaeosol Bed.
Definition of Upper Boundary: The upper boundary of the bed is typically gradational over c.0.05m with the overlying Camphill Gelifluctate Bed. On the margins of the channels/basins cut into bedrock seen in Kirkhill Quarry (infilled), units up to the Rottenhill Till Formation may rest conformably on the Swinedon Sand Bed.
Thickness: To 0.7m
Geographical Limits: Buchan, northeast Scotland. The bed is only known within the immediate vicinity of Kirkhill Quarry (infilled) (centres on NK 0120 5285) on Sheet 87W (Ellon).
Parent Unit: West Leys Sand and Gravel Formation (WLSG)
Previous Name(s): Kirkhill Organic Layer (-553)
Swinedon Member (-554)
Kirkhill Organic Deposits [Obsolete Name and Code: Use SWDEN] (-2465)
Alternative Name(s): none recorded or not applicable
Stratotypes:
Type Section  East face, Kirkhill Quarry (infilled), 7km southeast of Stricken, Buchan, northeast Scotland. Note: The Swineden Sand Bed was well developed in all faces of Kirkhill Quarry (infilled), but sudied most extensively on the east and southeast B faces. Connell, Hall and Romans, 1984. 
Reference(s):
Connell, E R, Edwards, K J and Hall, A M. 1982. Evidence for two pre-Flandrian palaeosols in Buchan, Scotland. Nature, 297, 570-572. 
Connell, E R, Hall, A M and Romans, J C C. 1984. Kirkhill Quarry. 57-81 in Hall, A M (Editor), Buchan Field Guide. (Cambridge: Quaternary Research Association.) 
Connell, E R and Hall, A M. 1987. The periglacial history of Buchan, Scotland. 277-285 in Boardman, J (Editor), Periglacial Processes and Landforms in Britain and Ireland. Periglacial processes in Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 
Hall, A M and Connell, E R. 1991. The glacial deposits of Buchan, northeast Scotland. 129-136 in Ehlers, J, Gibbard, P L and Rose, J (editors), Glacial Deposits in Great Britain and Ireland. (Rotterdam: Balkema.) 
Hall, A M and Jarvis, J. 1993. Kirkhill. 225-230 in Gordon, J E and Sutherland, D G (editors), Quaternary of Scotland. Geological Conservation Review Series: 6. (London: Chapman and Hall.) 
Merritt, J W, Connell, E R and Bridgland, D R (editors). 2000. The Quaternary of the Banffshire Coast and Buchan; Field Guide. (London: Quaternary Research Association.) 
Sutherland, D G. 1999. Scotland. 99-114 in Bowen D Q (Editor), A revised correlation of Quaternary deposits in the British Isles. Special Report of The Geological Society of London, No.23. 
Merritt, J W, Auton, C A, Connell, E R, Hall, A M and Peacock, J D. 2003. The Cainozoic geology and landscape evolution of north-east Scotland. Memoir of the British Geological Survey, Sheets 66E, 67, 76E, 77, 86E, 87W, 87E, 95, 96W, 96E and 97 (Scotland) 
Connell, E R and Hall, A M. 2000. Kirkhill and Leys quarries. 65-67 in Merritt, J W, Connell, E R and Bridgland, D R (editors), The Quaternary of the Banffshire Coast and Buchan: Field Guide. (London: Quaternary Research Association.) 
1:50K maps on which the lithostratigraphical unit is found, and map code used:
none recorded or not applicable