Monument record WLD 108 - Waldringfield Pit SSI

Waldringfield Pit is a Quaternary geological locality important for a sequence of Middle Pleistocene deposits. The sequence comprises, from the base upward Red Crag; Waldringfield Gravels; the Valley Farm temperate palaeosol; the Barham periglacial palaeosol; and coversands. The top 1–2m of the deposits is deformed by periglacial involutions. Waldringfield Pit is the type site for the Waldringfield Gravels, the lowest unit of the Kesgrave Sands and Gravels, which form a series of Middle Pleistocene terraces in Suffolk. The exposure of the Valley Farm palaeosol is significant because it is younger and less complex than on the higher terraces further north although it may have elements within which are attributable to post-Cromerian temperate pedogenesis. The pattern of involutions is also of particular interest as a later set of features (of Wolstonian or Devensian age) may be superimposed on an older Anglian Set. (S1).