Abstract In 1914 a notable cliff fall occurred on the chalk coast of the Seven Sisters in Sussex. Debris from the fall travelled outwards across the shore platform in front of the cliff for a distance of about 75 m, forming a narrow tongue-like projection. The reason why the debris exhibited such mobility is uncertain, but it may have flowed in a similar fashion to a sturzstrom, despite its modest volume (c. 12500m 3 ) and the equally modest height of the cliff (44-45 m). If this suggestion is correct, the minimum volume of detached rock required to trigger sturzstrom-type flow is 1-2 orders of magnitude less than is commonly claimed.

Abstract The Late Cretaceous Epoch, which lasted from 100 to 65 Ma, was a time of global sea-level rise, which reached a maximum at the beginning of the middle Turonian ( Haq et al. 1987, 1988 ). The fully marine warm conditions on the shelf seas gave rise to abundant blooms of calcarous nannoplankton that largely formed the resultant Chalk we see today. In addition to the coccoliths, the microfauna contains both plank-tonic and benthonic foraminifera, calcispheres, ostra-cods and the debris of macrofaunal elements, such as inoceramids, echinoids and bryozoans. Within the chalk are horizons of marls and flints, the former from periods of higher clastic/carbonate deposition, and the latter from precipitation of siliceous-rich groundwaters, mostly in burrow systems. Although the Late Cretaceous seas covered the majority of the British Isles, with the exception of the massifs in the positions of present-day NW Scotland, Cumbria, Cornwall, SW Wales and SW Ireland, much of the chalk deposited there has been removed by later erosion. The present-day outcrop is limited to a broad area from eastern Yorkshire through to Lincolnshire, a broad band from Norfolk to Dorset, then eastwards through Hampshire, and two swathes across the North and South Downs flanking The Weald. There are some chalk outliers in Devon and chalk is also preserved beneath the Tertiary basalts of Northern Ireland (Fig. 1 ). The stratigraphical coverage of the Late Cretaceous in Britain is largely complete from the Cenomanian to the Campanian; however, only part of the Early Maastrichtian Stage is

Abstract The creation of the river authorities and Water Resources Board in 1965 and the Water Authorities, Water Research Centre and Central Water Planning Unit in 1974 led to an explosion of groundwater investigation and development in England and Wales. In Southern Water’s region, from the Hastings Beds of the Wealden Series to the Recent beach gravels at Dungeness, a dozen or so schemes were carried out to investigate and develop aquifers and manage their groundwater resources. Six schemes are described here, including artificial recharge in Sussex, groundwater augmentation in Hampshire and the assessment of saline contamination from minewater disposal in East Kent.

Abstract The chalk facies dominates Upper Cretaceous strata in the Anglo-Paris Basin, northern Germany, Poland, southern Sweden, Denmark and the North Sea Basin. The very name of the Cretaceous is derived from ‘creta’, the Latin word for chalk. It is unsurprising, therefore, that some of the earliest uses of micropalaeontology in France and the United Kingdom was to determine the biostratigraphy of the chalk: by Alcide d’Orbigny in France and by staff of the (British) Geological Survey in the UK. This approach was extended, in the 1940s, to the analysis of on-shore, and then offshore, hydrocarbon exploration wells. The continuing interest in the foraminifera of the chalk can be linked to the site investigation for the Channel Tunnel, construction of the Thames Barrier and the development of chalk oilfields in the North Sea Basin. Supporting these interests is a body of research aimed at the understanding of both the overall biostratigraphy of the chalk and some of the key bio-events of the Late Cretaceous: most notably the Cenomanian/Turonian boundary event (OAE ll) and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.