The correlation of the Speeton Shell Bed, Filey Bay, Yorkshire, to an oxygen isotope stage

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SUMMARY The Speeton Shell Bed is a Quaternary estuarine deposit approximately 2m thick. It is overlain by late Devensian till that, in places, contains thin rafts of Basement Till. Amino acid ratios of Macoma balthica shells allow correlations to be made with the well dated sequence of oceanic oxygen isotope stages. These suggest that the shell bed was deposited in Oceanic Stage 7, and that the Basement Till was probably deposited in Oceanic Stage 6. In view of the recent controversy over the status of the type Wolstonian in the Midlands the Basement Till seems to be the most likely remaining representative of the Wolstonian Stage glaciation in Britain. There is now considerable evidence to separate an earlier (Oceanic Stage 7) interglacial from the classic Ipswichian (Oceanic Stage 5e) in Britain. This casts some doubt on the reliability of pollen analysis for exact dating, as assemblages from analogous (early temperate) zones of the two interglacials are apparently indistinguishable.

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