6. Fig 2.
East Anglian Clayton
Stage Sequence (1960) Now
Several pieces of work now make us wish to modify our
views about this sequence of events. Firstly, Turner
(Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. Series B, 1970) at Marks Tey,
discovered Hoxnian deposits resting on a blue Till, but
with no overlying Till. This had profound implication.
The blue Till in that area is regarded as Springfield
Till and as this Till underlies the Hoxnian deposits,
it must be Anglian in age, or older, not Wolstonian as
originally thought. Also, because no Till overlies
the Hoxnian deposits, there can have been no ice
advance into Essex during the Wolstonian, as it would
have had to pass Marks Tey to reach the Chelmsford area
from east Suffolk, where the Gipping Till was first
recognised.
Later, people began to doubt the existence of three
Tills. Baker (Essex Naturalist, 1971) found that in
West Essex, the Hanningfield Till and Springfield Till
merged with one another, that they were continuous and
therefore one and the same deposit. Bristow and Cox
(Journ. Geol. Soc. London 1973) regard the Hanningfield
Till, found on the hills, not as a glacial deposit but
as local flinty mud flows (head deposits) formed during