Walton-on-the-Naze

To access the cliffs and beach at Walton-on-the-Naze, park your car at The Naze Tower car park CO14 8LJ. and descend to the beach via the steps.

Walking towards Harwich, the orange-red cliffs to the left are formed of Red Crag, a marine deposit of some 3 million years of age. The Red Crag slumps and can often be seen at the base of the cliffs which run along the entire length of the beach, overlying the London Clay. Overall, the accessibility to the Red Crag in the high cliffs is difficult, requiring a climb to the top sections , which cannot be dug into, being an SSI site. Shells can be found in the scree slopes and are weathered out, in many cases being in a better condition that those would found in the main face of the cliff, these being very fragile. The Red Crag fossils are derived from the Miocene age.

The UKAFH visit produced few finds in the way of Red Crag fossils. The usual spectacular quantities of gastropods and bivalves were just not evident and the Red Crag sand, which had slumped on the beach, was just a mix of the familiar orange red sand with London Clay, with only the odd example of the Crag bivalve Glcymeris and the gastropod Neptunea.

On the other hand, the London Clay produced a great array of fossils, all found in the shingle on the beach, where the sea had washed them out of the clay. The only way to find them was to adopt a ‘hands and knees’ approach, sifting through the shingle. The fossils come from the London Clay below beach level, so fossils are either washed up or found on low tides.
Sharks teeth of a variety of species were ever-present and some fish and shark vertebrae were also found, along with turtle bones, bird bones, wood and seed pods.
All UKAFH members came away with a good quantity of finds, proving that Walton-on-the-Naze continues to be a great location for fossil hunting.