Red Crag Deer from Trimley and Felixstowe

RED CRAG DEER FROM TRIMLEY AND FELIXSTOWE B y HAROLD E . P . SPENCER,

F.G.S.

DĂźring 1950 while inspecting the collection of Crag fossils formed by the father of Miss J. C. N. Willis, I noted a broken antler which Miss Willis very generously consented should become part of the important Ipswich Museum collection. The specimen had been labelled Cervus dicranocerus, a name which has all too often been erroneously applied to Crag deer fossils ; no fossil to which this name truly applies has yet been seen in any series of Crag mammalian remains. In actual fact the specimen is a shed antler of a not fully-grown Megaceros verticornis, a species of which fossil remains are abundant in the Cromer Forest Bed of Norfolk which extends southwards into Suffolk as far as Kessingland. Remains of these giant deer and other animals of the period have been collected from below the cliff and beach at Hopton and Corton though none have so far been presented to the Ipswich Museum.

Having seen a record of an antler of this species from the Red Crag of Trimley in the collections at the British Museum (Natural History)*, from the same pit, not far from the churches, I took the Ipswich specimen to London for the purpose of comparison.

It was considered, owing to the extreme rarity of fossils of this species in the Crag, the two specimens might possibly be parts of the same antler as the broken surfaces are fresh, i.e., made when the bone was found and not during the Crag period. The British Museum specimen was found to be more complete and to have been shed by an older but still not fully-grown beast. By coincidence both fossils are left antlers.

During 1953 two deer bones were discovered at Felixstowe during the excavation of a sewer trench (a note on these was published in the Transactions for that year). T h e more important, a skull fragment, was much broken by the excavating machine.

However, some diagnostic characters remained and recently this also was taken to London for comparison with specimens from the Savin Collection of Cromer Forest Bed mammalian fossils at the British Museum (Natural History). The new specimens are also referable to Megaceros verticornis, but of a very young animal.

It is evident from the deep depression at the rear of the pedicle of the antler, and the angle of the pedicle in relation to the frontal bones of the skull the specimens can only belong to this species.

A pre-molar tooth of this deer discovered in the Norwich Crag of Easton Bavents had also been added to the Ipswich Museum collection by the brothers Long of Lowestoft. * Newton, E. T .

Pliocene Mammalia.

Mem. Geol. Survey.

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RED CRAG DEER FROM TRIMLEY AND FELIXSTOWE

These specimens are of great importance in showing this genus of Cromer Forest Bed giant deer was living in East Anglia about half a million years earlier than has generally been supposed.

T h e y are also important in indicating, from their State of mineralisation, that the animals were living at the time of the deposition of the Crag beds, and are not derived as are the great majority of so-called Crag mammalian remains which were fossil millions of years before the Crag Sea invaded the land.

HOG HIGHLAND

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B y HAROLD E . P . SPENCER,

IPSWICH F.G.S.

DĂźring the past year excavations have been carried out on the riverside face of Hog Highland, a spur of high ground which diverts the River Orwell from an easterly to a southerly course, for the purpose of obtaining Alling for the construction of the new Cliff Quay extension by the Ipswich Dock Commission. T h e work has resulted in the deepest section of a temporary character made in Suffolk other than in pits or quarries. T h e vertical height exposed is about seventy feet, of which the greater part consists of Eocene deposits.

At the top of the hill the plateau consists of Glacial gravel which, from the adjoining section made at the rear of the new Power Station, has been channelled and another gravel of a Cannon Shot type laid down. In this area the plateau graVels sometimes contain small erratic patches of Chalky Boulder Clay and there are limited areas of solifluction at the hillbrow. It is considered the gravel dips southward to a little above the Spring tide mark below the cliff at the northern end of Piper's Vale. T h e site is now obscured by the ash disposal area of the Power Station.

Unfossiliferous Red Crag Sand is next in the section, below which the Crag Basement Bed is of unusual character, consisting mainly of boulders of London Clay with a small admixture of sand and phosphatic nodules. T h e deposit contains very little flint and very few fossils of any kind. In the hill section behind the Power Station the base of the Crag is lower and its basement bed richer in " Coprolites" and fossils, such as much rolled London Clay Crustacea. At the north end of Piper's Vale the Red Crag extends down to the mean tide level where it is subjected to tidal erosion.