The Interglacial at Clacton-On-Sea, Essex

Summary Pollen analyses through 18 feet of deposits in the Clacton channel show that the upper part of the freshwater beds falls within a warm-temperate forest period, whilst the overlying estuarine deposits formed in a period of declining warmth in which coniferous forests became dominant. The preponderance of pollen of Abies (silver fir) in these deposits is noteworthy. The marine transgression thus took place in the middle to second half of an interglacial cycle, and it is suggested that this may have been due to an isostatic depression of the North Sea basin comparable with similar movements of other interglacial periods. The pollen diagram shows little correspondence with British diagrams from the (older) Cromer Forest Bed, or from beds taken to belong to the Last Interglacial. Similarly, comparison with the range of West European interglacial pollen diagrams suggests the possibility that the Clacton deposits may relate to the Penultimate Interglacial.