The Cromer Forest Bed: Preglacial or Interglacial?

Abstract

THE relation of the Cromer Forest Bed Series to the overlying glacial deposits and to the earlier Crag Series has long been a problem, but the recent communication in Nature by Prof. P. G. H. Boswell¹ should do much to dispel the idea that the Cromerian stage can be described as an ‘Interglacial’. No glacial tills or similar deposits have ever been seen below this Series, and therefore from the point of view of stratigraphy its description as ‘Interglacial’ can only cause confusion. The very few glacial erratics which have been found in and below the Crag can be attributed to the action of sea-ice, and cannot be counted as representing a ‘glaciation’; these erratics are so rare that in practice unfossiliferous Crag deposits can be distinguished in the field from most glacial beds by the fact that erratics are scarcely ever found in the Crag.