West Angle -- more than just bedrock

https://www.pembrokeshirecoast.wales/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/RIGS_SPG_FinalOct11Eng.pdf

I was looking through the National Park's RIGS list (published in 2011) and realised that in the citation for West Angle there is no mention at all of anything of importance for our understanding of the Quaternary.  That's a pity, since most geomorphologists see this as one of the most important -- and controversial -- sites in Wales.  

DQ Bowen and various others have cited the site as a "type location" showing a pre-Ipswichian till lying UNDERNEATH raised beach and interglacial deposits.  But having stated that around 1970, and on numerous occasions and in many papers since then, it remains true that there has never been an adequate site description from DQB or anybody else showing -- unequivocally -- an ancient till right down at or near beach level.  Typically, if you hunt through the citations and the articles by DQB (who sadly died a few years ago) all you find are self-citations and no evidence, going round and round in circles.......

In contrast, I have shown in a number of posts on this blog that Bowen, Campbell, Morey and various others are wrong, and that their suppositions are down to a mis-reading of the Quaternary stratigraphy at West Angle.  They failed to recognise the importance of a steeply dipping erosional contact with multiple glaciotectonic features -- including the incorporation into the glacial deposits of lenses of interglacial clays and silts.  

I say -- and I have always insisted -- that there is just one till at West Angle, and it rests stratigraphically ABOVE the raised beach and interglacial silts and clays.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the site is quite important enough to be mentioned in the RIGS citation.  I am trying to get it re-written, but in the world of RIGS committees, things move very slowly indeed.........

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-west-angle-enigma.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-west-angle-enigma-2-silt-and-clay.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-west-angle-enigma-3-two-tills-or-one.html

See also:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-west-angle-sediment-sequence-moreys.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2017/03/west-angle-gallery.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2017/03/west-angle-bay-classic-coastal-section.html