Geological Guide to East Runton

There are not many locations in the UK, where you can find, huge chalk cliffs sitting on top of pleistocene deposits! East Runton is certain a location which shows the power of ice, as it was glaciers which have been responsible for these spectacular cliffs.

At the very top of the cliffs is the glacial sands and gravels, these can be a thin bed, almost removed totally by ice movement, and in other areas, they can be many metres thick.

The Wroxham Crag forms at the base of these deposits, although the crag is not always continuous and varies in thickness. Some pockets of this bed contain shells beds similar to Weybourne.

Below this is the Beeston Chalk. This chalk however is not continuous, instead it is rafts of ice transported chalk and highly deformed 'contorted drift'. Some areas the chalk is missing, whilst others it forms the bulk of the cliff formation.

The most astonishing successtion is the formations below the chalk, here the chalk sits on Pastonian clay conglomerate and marine shell beds. These can be seen as light blue clay exposed on the foreshore, and hard gravel beds compated together with stones, gravel and small boulders. In other areas, clay, gravels and silts are mixed together in a patchy bed.

Below this, the Beeston Chalk can also be seen on the foreshore, this being the actual original bedrock, not transported like that in the cliff.

Full succession


Close up of the Pastonian Silts below the chalk.

Pastonian gravels, silts and clays in a patchy bed.

Pastonian blue clays on the foreshore below the chalk.

Pastonian shell beds.

Beeston chalk exposed on the foreshore.