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Description: | Typical county museum collection of erratic rocks. Most of the erratics have been collected from locations in Norfolk and Suffolk, mainly the North Norfolk coast, locations near Norwich and parts of the Waveney valley; a few have come from farther afield, including the Isle of Man. A handful of finds are described in publications.
A significant number of the specimens were collected from exposures of till, 'brickearth' and fluvioglacial deposits. Unfortunately, a considerable proportion of the archive has been gathered as 'field stones', from beaches and from unspecified geological locations. The stratigraphic context of finds from field surfaces is inevitably uncertain. Scandinavian specimens collected from the shore may have been washed there when ballast was liberated from the numerous wrecks that litter many coastal waters. In fact, only a very few specimens are associated with reliable site and stratigraphic details. The small proportion that are include erratics from the Happisburgh Till at Happisburgh (the oldest undisputed till in Britain), from the Lowestoft Till at Corton, and from outwash gravels at the Briton's Lane Pit, Beeston Regis.
The archive covers a very wide range of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks. A considerable number of glacially transported fossils, including ammonites, molluscs, tree roots and fragments of large vertebrates, are also included in the collection. Some specimens have been sectioned and polished. Many of the rocks, sandstones for example, lack clearly defined characteristics that would allow them to be linked with particular source outcrops.
As a consequence of the current [2006] interest in the erratic content of some of the earliest Quaternary sediments in East Anglia, and the Museum's expertise in the Pleistocene Cromer Forest-bed Formation, the erratic collection recently acquired a number of erratics from the Happisburgh Till
and related deposits.
In view of the uncertain identity and ultimate provenance of many of the specimens, the collection is subject to continuing research. Many identifications will remain uncertain until geologists with an intimate knowledge of particular rocks are able to examine individual specimens. Few of the specimens are on display but the collection may be seen by appointment | Format: | 1200 specimens | Subjects: | Rocks Petrology Geology | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | FAX: | +44 (0)1603 493623 | Telephone: | +44 (0)1603 493625 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:7000 | Format: | 1200 specimens | Go to resource |
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