The BGS Lexicon of Named Rock Units — Result Details

Woolpit Beds

Computer Code: WPIT Preferred Map Code: notEntered
Status Code: Full
Age range: Anglian Stage (QA) — Anglian Stage (QA)
Lithological Description: The Woolpit Beds comprise silty clay, clayey silt and silty fine-grained sand. A detailed account is given in Bristow and Gregory (1982). Borehooles have yielded a sparse foraminiferal fauna. The Woolpit Beds are underlain and overlain by chalky till. It is generally assumed that the till is Lowestoft Formation, although this had not been proved.
Definition of Lower Boundary: The Woolpit Beds overlie chalky till of the Lowestoft Formation.
Definition of Upper Boundary: The Woolpit Beds are either at outcrop or are overlain by glaciofluvial sand and gravel and till of the Lowestoft Formation.
Thickness: Maximum recorded thickness in boreholes is 23.25 m. BGS Registered No. TL96SE/158.
Geographical Limits: The Woolpit Beds occupy a 1 km-wide depression in the Lowestoft Formation at Woolpit, Suffolk.
Parent Unit: Lowestoft Formation (LOFT)
Previous Name(s): Brickearth (BRK)
Alternative Name(s): none recorded or not applicable
Stratotypes:
Type Area  Sediments infilling a 1 km-wide depression in chalky till (of the Lowestoft Formation) at Woolpit, Suffolk. Bristow and Gregory, 1982. 
Type Section  Woolpit No.3 Borehole. BGS Registered No. TL96SE/158 proved 23.25 m of Woolpit Beds. The borehole was sunk in the floor of a brickpit, some 7.5 m deep. Bristow, 1990; Bristow and Gregory, 1982. 
Reference(s):
Bristow, C R and Gregory, D M. 1982. Notes on the high-level.(?marine) Late-Anglian Woolpit Beds, Suffolk. Transactions of the Suffolk Naturalists Society, Vol.18, 310-317. 
Bristow, C R. 1990. Geology of the country around Bury St Edmunds. Memoir of the British Geological Survey, Sheet 189 (England and Wales). 
1:50K maps on which the lithostratigraphical unit is found, and map code used:
E189 E190