fOLKESTON E 



HVTHE *^'*'' 



The blue grey Wealden Clay, eroded throughout much of the Weald 

 into a broad valley, disappears beneath a narrow clay belt and the first 

 of the major Lower Greensand Beds at Hythe. The sandstones of the 

 Hythe Beds, which give rise to the main hills behind Hythe and most 

 of the high land along to Seabrook, include bands of sandy limestone, 

 well known as a building stone under the name of Kentish Rag. Next 

 in sequence, the dark sandy clays of the Sandgate Beds continue the 

 gentle dip to the northeast and, after supporting Sandgate itself, can be 

 examined in much of the undercliff of the Leas. The town of Folke- 

 stone rests almost completely on the Folkestone Beds, rather soft, fine, 

 light brown or greenish sands, sometimes with intervening bands of 

 calcareous sandstone. These normally form most of the Leas cliff face 

 and are well exposed at East Cliff, backing the beach and promenade. 

 These youngest Lower Greensand strata, ninety feet thick in this area, 

 extend inland to the northwest forming a broad surface outcrop. 



Not far to the east of the harbour the blue Gault clays form the 

 upper cliff and, dipping gradually, constitute the whole face at Copt 

 Point before disappearing beneath the Chalk. These cliffs are well 

 known for their readily accessible and well preserved fossils. Beyond 

 Copt Point is a wild scenically attractive area of tumbled relief, the 

 Warren, where huge masses of Chalk and the underlying Gault have 

 slid seawards in a series of landslips after undercutting erosion by sea 

 action. Inland the Gault outcrops in a relatively narrow belt along the 

 foot of the Chalk scarp, often partially covered by material eroded from 

 the steep slopes above. 



Farther eastward, the Chalk beds exposed along the tall cliffs between 

 Folkestone and Dover are mostly of the Lower Series, very grey when 

 compared with the white chalks of the Upper Series which appear in 

 the cliffs east of Dover. These beds eventually dip as a syncline beneath 

 the alluvium deposited since Roman times in Wantsum Channel, before 

 reappearing in the Isle of Thanet. 



It is only recently that the origin of the Chalk has been determined. 

 Many fossil remains of fish are visible to the naked eye, but the bulk of 

 the material defied examination even by the most powerful microscope. 

 Now the electron microscope has revealed that at least four-fifths of 

 chalk is of vegetable origin. Plants resembling microscopic footballs 



