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

Why an atlas of the Carboniferous in northern England? There can hardly be a more researched system in the whole of the British Isles, given its widespread distribution at outcrop and annual appearance in numerous PhD theses (including our own). But perhaps all we really know about the Carboniferous is no more than skimming the surface. In this atlas, using modern multifold seismic and borehole data collected by the oil industry in its search for petroleum accumulations, we can start to look beyond the surface exposures and gain some new insights into the structure and stratigraphy of the subsurface (and surface) Carboniferous. The main elements of this atlas are: (i) a series of regional seismic lines crossing all the basinal areas in northern England illustrating the Carboniferous in section, and (ii) a set of palaeofacies maps describing the evolution of the system in map view.

In 2001 the Dorset and east Devon Coast was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a place of outstanding universal value on the basis of its geological succession, coastal processes and landforms and its place in the history of the development of geology (especially stratigraphy and palaeontology). Extending from Orcombe Point in the west to Studland in the east, this World Heritage Site's 85 miles of coastline contains a record of 185 million years of Earth history. At the time of the proposal being submitted to UNESCO there were discussions about whether the planned site could be extended westwards to Torquay, covering the Permian and the Devonian rocks of Teignmouth, Dawlish and Torquay or eastwards to include the Isle of Wight. For various reasons (mostly non-geological) it was decided not to expand the proposed site further, although the Isle of Wight would have been the natural extension of the site, including more of the Cretaceous succession as well as the marine Cenozoic succession of the Hampshire Basin. This excursion is, in reality, looking at what the expanded site would have included.