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Wealden Group

Stratigraphic Group in England

Field	Value
name	Wealden Group
image	Cliffs by beach at Bexhill-on-Sea in England - 2008-07-13 D.jpg
imagesize	250px
caption	Coastal exposure of the Wealden Group near Bexhill-on-Sea
type	Group
age
Late Berriasian-Aptian,
period	Early Cretaceous
namedfor	Weald
region	England
country	United Kingdom
subunits	*Weald Basin
underlies	Lower Greensand Group
overlies	Purbeck Group
thickness	Up to 850 m in Weald Basin, c. 500 m in Wessex basin, few m in marginal areas

Late Berriasian-Aptian,

Weald Clay Formation
Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation
Wadhurst Clay Formation
Ashdown Formation
Wessex Basin
- Vectis Formation
- Wessex Formation
Marginal - Whitchurch Sand Formation

The Wealden Group, occasionally also referred to as the Wealden Supergroup, is a group (a sequence of rock strata) in the lithostratigraphy of southern England. The Wealden group consists of paralic to continental (freshwater) facies sedimentary rocks of Berriasian to Aptian age and thus forms part of the English Lower Cretaceous. It is composed of alternating sands and clays. The sandy units were deposited in a flood plain of braided rivers, the clays mostly in a lagoonal coastal plain.

The Wealden Group can be found in almost all Early Cretaceous basins of England: its outcrops curve from the Wessex Basin in the south to the Cleveland Basin in the northeast. It is not found in northwest England and Wales, areas which were at the time tectonic highs where no deposition took place. The same is true for the London Platform around London and Essex. Offshore, the Wealden Group can reach a thickness of 700 metres. The terms Wealden and Wealden facies are also used as generic terms referring to Early Cretaceous non-marine sequences elsewhere in Europe.

Stratigraphy

The Wealden Group lies stratigraphically on top of the Purbeck Group, which spans the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary. Within the Wessex Basin, the Wealden Group consists of two formations: the Wessex Formation and overlying Vectis Formation. In the Weald Basin, the Wealden Group consists of four formations: the Ashdown Formation, the Wadhurst Clay Formation, the Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation and the Weald Clay Formation. The lower three formations are sometimes collectively referred to as the Hastings Beds. In Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire, the Wealden Group is only found as an outlier on top of hills and only consists of a single formation, the Whitchurch Sand Formation. In Yorkshire, the equivalently aged Speeton Clay Formation, a marine unit, is present.

On top of the Wealden Group is the Lower Greensand Group. The difference between these two groups has been formed by a major eustatic (global) transgression of the sea. The Greensand (Aptian/Albian in age) consists of marine deposits.

The sequence in the Weald Basin has also been described as a supergroup, containing the Weald Clay Group and Hastings Group.

Palaeontology

The Wealden Group forms outcrops covering a large part of south and south-eastern England including the Isle of Wight. It takes its name from the Weald region of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire. It has yielded many fossils, including dinosaurs like Iguanodon and Hypsilophodon. Apart from fossils, it shows many other signs of being deposited in a continental environment, such as mudcracks and -in some rare cases- dinosaur footprints. Taxa included in the table below have an uncertain provenance and cannot be placed into one of the constituent formations, thus they are placed here.

Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs reported from the Wealden Group	Genus	Species	Location	Stratigraphic position	Material	Notes	Images
Coloborhynchus	vauthors = Rodrigues T, Kellner AW	title = Taxonomic review of the Ornithocheirus complex (Pterosauria) from the Cretaceous of England	journal = ZooKeys	issue = 308	pages = 1–112	year = 2013	pmid = 23794925	pmc = 3689139	doi = 10.3897/zookeys.308.5559	bibcode = 2013ZooK..308....1R	doi-access = free }}		Hastings Beds	"Anterior portion of rostrum"	An ornithocheirid pterosaur.	[[File:Anhanguera piscator jconway.jpg	center	thumb	150x150px	[[Coloborhynchus]]]]

Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs reported from the Wealden Group	Genus	Species	Location	Stratigraphic position	Material	Notes	Images
author=Barrett PM & Upchurch P	year=1995	title=Regnosaurus northamptoni, a stegosaurian dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Southern England	journal=Geological Magazine	volume=132	pages=213–222	doi=10.1017/S0016756800011754	issue=2	bibcode=1995GeoM..132..213B	s2cid=129540156 }}	R. northamptoni			An incomplete right mandible	Traditionally regarded as a stegosaur, but later as a dubious, indeterminate thyreophoran	[[File:Regnosaurus.jpg	frameless]]
Thecospondylus	T. horneri		Hastings Beds	"Internal mold of sacrum."	Dubious genus that has been variously classified as either a saurischian or ornithischian. It is currently only tentatively regarded as dinosaurian.	[[File:Thecospondylus.jpg	center	frameless]]
Therosaurus	T. anglicus
Altispinax	A. dunkeri		Hastings Beds	"Dorsal vertebrae."		[[File:Becklespinax.jpg	center	frameless	198x198px]]
Haestasaurus	H. becklesii		Hastings Beds	Forelimb	A ?basal macronarian
Pleurocoelus	P. valdensis				A dubious basal titanosauriform
Turiasauria	Indeterminate		Hasting beds?	vauthors=Mannion PD	date=2019-01-24	title=A turiasaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Wealden Supergroup of the United Kingdom	journal=PeerJ	volume=7	article-number=e6348	doi=10.7717/peerj.6348	pmc=6348093	pmid=30697494	doi-access=free }}
Theropoda	Indeterminate
Xenoposeidon	X. proneneukos				A rebbachisaurid sauropod

Wealden elsewhere in Europe

The term "Wealden" and "Wealden facies" has been applied to other Lower Cretaceous sequences in Europe, including the "German Wealden", comprising the Berriasian aged Bückeberg Formation of the Lower Saxony Basin and in Belgium, where "Wealden facies" has been used as a term to refer to the Barremian-Aptian aged sequences of the Mons Basin, including the Sainte-Barbe Clays Formation where large numbers of Iguanodon were found in the 19th century.

References

Jackson (2008)
(2008). "A stratigraphical framework for the Lower Cretaceous of England". British Geological Survey.
(2009). "A new large basal tetanuran (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Wessex Formation (Barremian) of the Isle Of Wight, England". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Weishampel ''et al.'' (2004)
(2013). "Taxonomic review of the Ornithocheirus complex (Pterosauria) from the Cretaceous of England". ZooKeys.
Barrett PM & Upchurch P. (1995). "''Regnosaurus northamptoni'', a stegosaurian dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Southern England". Geological Magazine.
"10.21 Kent, England; 1. Hastings Beds"in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 559.
"Table 2.1," in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 26.
Huene, 1909. Skizze zu einer Systematik und Stammesgeschichte der Dinosaurier [Sketch of the systematics and origins of the dinosaurs]. Centralblatt für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie. 1909, 12-22.
"10.18 West Sussex, England; 1. Hastings Beds" in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 559.
"10.19 East Sussex, England; 1. Hastings Beds" in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 559.
"Table 4.1," in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 73.
Paul Upchurch, Philip D. Mannion & Michael P. Taylor (2015) The Anatomy and Phylogenetic Relationships of “Pelorosaurus“ becklesii (Neosauropoda, Macronaria) from the Early Cretaceous of England. PLoS ONE 10(6): e0125819. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125819 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0125819
"10.19 East Sussex, England; 1. Hastings Beds" and "10.18 West Sussex, England; 1. Hastings Beds" in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 559.
(2019-01-24). "A turiasaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Wealden Supergroup of the United Kingdom". PeerJ.
"10.19 East Sussex, England; 1. Hastings Beds" and "10.18 West Sussex, England; 1. Hastings Beds" and "10.21 Kent, England; 1. Hastings Beds"in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 559.
Richter, Annette. (2012). "Dinosaur Tracks 2011: an international symposium, Obernkirchen, April 14-17, 2011 : abstract volume and field guide to excursions". Universitätsverlag Göttingen.
(2007-04-01). "Palynology of the dinosaur-bearing Wealden facies in the natural pit of Bernissart (Belgium)". Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology.

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