Suffolk Rocks & Fossils

The Crag sands deposited by the Pliocene North Sea are Suffolk's fossil El Dorado .   Here lie the remains of extinct whales which sang unknown songs of ancient Suffolk whilst they were hunted by giant sharks.   On land the spectacular fauna included tapirs, mastodons and red pandas.   This paradise was later lost when Suffolk shivered in the wilderness of the Ice Age.

A recent temporary excavation in the Red Crag at Sutton enabled a look at some of the quieter denizens of this unattainable sea – a left-handed whelk, some beautiful top-shells, a coral, and a cockle named after Dr Parkinson, its first finder.

Walkers on the footpath passing by Rockhall Wood, Sutton, can see GeoSuffolk's new panel about the trees in the 'Pliocene Forest' project; this interprets the fossil pollen from the Coralline Crag deposit, as seen in the nearby pit. The site is on private ground, but is easily viewed from the footpath near the board. Click on the picture below for the large version.

GeoSuffolk leaflets to download

Suffolk now stands on the shore of a new North Sea , its children continuing the voyage and adventure of time.

Time Travellers (erratics) leaflet

Flint leaflet

GeoSuffolk Notes to download

17. Echinoids

24. Coprolite Street

If you wish to see more East Anglian rocks and fossils, including the fossil teeth of the world’s largest shark....

Visit the Ipswich Museum

And the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge.

Fossil elephants, mammoths and mastodons are a Suffolk speciality. We have the most complete range in Britain , spanning over four million years of the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods.

GeoSuffolk has created a Suffolk Mammoth Trail. It explains the wildlife of a range of warm interglacial and cold glacial periods in Suffolk . We have set up seven outdoor panels at sites across the county, each featuring a wildlife panorama in colour, with information about the site, its plants and animals (including early humans) and environment.

 You can see the panels at:

•  Blythburgh, Toby's Walks picnic site

•  Lower Holbrook, car park

•  Long Melford, Rodbridge picnic site

•  Wherstead, Bobbit’s Lane car park

•  Homersfield, village green

•  Lackford, Lackford Lakes nature reserve

•  Needham Market, Needham Lake

Suffolk Mammoth Trail panel at Suffolk Wildlife Trust Lackford Lakes Nature Reserve

When you visit the the Mammoth Trail panel at Needham Lake look out for the Mid Suffolk Aggregates Trail.

Click on the thumbnail below to see a larger image of the Suffolk Mammoth Trail panel at Homersfield.

See also:

Stoke Tunnel SSSI panel at Ipswich

Life-size mammoth reconstruction at Ipswich Museum