Bramerton Pits is a geological

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

north of the village of

Bramerton Bramerton is a village and civil parish in the England, English county of Norfolk. Bramerton is located north-west of Loddon, Norfolk, Loddon and south-east of Norwich. History Bramerton's name is of Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon origin and d ...

Norfolk, England Norfolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and east, Cambridgeshire to the west, a ...

, on the southern banks of the

River Yare The River Yare is a river in the English county of Norfolk. In its lower reaches it is one of the principal navigable waterways of The Broads and connects with the rest of the network. The river rises south of Dereham to the west to the villag ...

. It is a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...

site. The site is composed of two disused gravel pits which are important for the study of the

Lower Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, representing the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently estimated to span th ...

. Bramerton Common Pit is the

type site In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and H ...

of the

Norwich Crag Formation The Norwich Crag Formation is a stratigraphic unit of the British Pleistocene Epoch. It is the second youngest unit of the Crag Group, a sequence of four geological formations spanning the Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene transition in East Anglia. ...

and Blakes Pit is the type site of the Bramertonian Stage. Both pits have yielded rich, mainly marine vertebrate fossils. The geological deposits include sands, silts and gravels which have yielded fossils of marine and non-marine mollusca, foraminifera and vertebrates. Studies of fossils from Blake's Pit have demonstrated changes from temperate (Bramertonian) to cold (Pre-Pastonian) climatic conditions. Bramerton Common Pit has yielded a rich fossil vertebrate fauna including marine fishes and extinct species of

gomphothere Gomphotheres are an extinct group of proboscideans related to modern elephants. First appearing in Africa during the Oligocene, they dispersed into Eurasia and North America during the Miocene and arrived in South America during the Pleistocene a ...

mastodont, otter and vole. Both sites are nationally important for understanding early Pleistocene environments and faunal changes in Britain. Bramerton Common Pit is adjacent to Bramerton Common near Woods End and Blakes Pit is further east at the end of Hill House Road. There is public access to the site.

References

{{SSSIs Norfolk Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Norfolk Geological Conservation Review sites