The report that follows presents a first statement of the results of a study sponsored by the European Economic Community and the Department of Trade and Industry as communicated to a meeting of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy Midlands Section at which the President (Dr A. J. Robinson) and the Section Chairman (Professor N. A. Warner) were present. It was my privilege to attend and to make some concluding remarks; these form the basis of this preface. The Geological Survey, now in its 154th year, has as one of its principal objects the provision of geological maps based on surveying in maximum detail at a scale of 1:10 000. In areas where extractive or other engineering industry is important, the surveys have been revised more than once as new subsurface data became available.

Landforms and landscapes vary enormously across the Earth, from high mountains to endless plains. At a smaller scale, Nature often surprises us by creating shapes which look improbable. Many physical landscapes are so immensely beautiful that they have received the highest possible recognition—they hold the status of World Heritage properties. Apart from often being immensely scenic, landscapes tell stories which not uncommonly can be traced back in time for tens of million years and include unique events.

In England, in the sphere of Jurassic geology, we are wardens of a classic area, for our cliffs and quarries are the standards of comparison for the whole world. A German authority, Dr. Hans Salfeld, remarked after a brief study in 1914: ‘Research on the faunas and their succession shows that the English Upper Jurassic can be taken as the type of that of North-West Europe, in the most complete development anywhere yet known.’ He had studied only the Upper Jurassic, but the same could with equal truth be said of the Lower.

In den Jahren 1815 und 1816 legte William Smith den Grand zu der noch heute bestehenden Eintheilung der Juraformation , indem er ihre Glieder nach den versteinerten Resten scharf zu trennen suchte. So einfach die Paläontologie damals betrieben wurde, so wenig man auch in dieser Wissenschaft vorgeschritten war, so wusste doch Smith flir die Bezeichnung seiner Etagen gerade diejenigen fossilen Arten liervorzuheben und (oft ohne Namen) abzubilden, welche den paläontologischen C’haracter der Schichten am deutlichsten Wiedergaben. Schon der Titel einer seiner Arbeiten: „Strata identified by organized Fossils,“ zeigt, dass er seine Eintheilung auf diejenigen Grundsätze basirte. welche allein angewendet werden könnon, um das relative Alter der Formationen sicher zu bestimmen. <...>

Upon a general review of the Oolitic Lamellibranchiate Mollusks, it will be found that a very large proportion consists of shells whose hinges may be arranged under one or other of the following two groups, each of which has various generic modifications. The first consists of a lengthened hinge plate, having a parallel series of transverse or oblique teeth, as exemplified by Area, with its sub-genera Cucullaa, Nueula, Leda, Macrodon, Isoarca, Limopsis.

Testa subrhomboidea, fornicatd, concentrice lineata, umbonibus terminalibus incurvis, carina dorsali acuta, latere postico abrupto, lunula plana. (Goldfuss.)
Shell nearly rhomboidal or cordiform, elongated; unibones terminal, rather augulated and incurved; dorsal surface with an elevated acute angle; the lunule is very small and cordiform, its borders rounded; the anterior portion of the surface has concentric lines, which pass over the carina, and are soon lost upon the flattened posterior surface.

The authors of the present Monograph, after due consideration of the materials at their disposal, have thought fit to limit their illustrations to the Testacea of the Great or Bath Oolite; a term under which they would include the series of beds situated between the Fullers-earth strata upon which they repose, and the Bradford clay to which they are subjacent. To have enlarged the plan, so as to include the Testacea of the Corn-brash and Forest marble, would doubtless have been more comprehensive; but in the present state of our knowledge, the advantage would have been rather apparent than real.

This publication is the outcome of collaborative research between the British Geological Survey (BGS) and Rothamsted Research. BGS is a research institute partly funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Rothamsted Research receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The analyses presented in this atlas were funded from the NERC core grant provided to the British Geological Survey. Details of the availability of the geochemical data are available from the website:

www.bgs.ac.uk/gbase/advsoilatlasEW