Above the Red  Crag there occurs a series of orange silts with highly cryoturbinated greyish green clays laid down in the course of a large river that ran in a north easterly Direction. These are thought to be an Early forerunner of the Medway/Thames when it was a tributary of the Rhine, the rivers joined each other somewhere near the present day Dogger bank in the North sea. This deposit dates to the Anglian Glaciation which occurred 450-500 thousand years ago.

At the top of the cliff in the Glacial sand and gravels there occurs ice wedge pseudomorphs, (ice wedges) these are a fairly common feature at the top of the cliff and are indicative of tundra conditions. They date from the
Devensian  Glaciation 100-10 thousand years ago.

EARLY MAN.

Over the years many worked flints have been picked up at the Naze, everything from Hand axes to arrowheads and scrapers. The earliest piece I have personally found is a small piece of broken Mesolithic blade more common are pieces of  late Neolithic/early Bronze age mostly arrowheads and blades. The flint from which the later pieces are made   came here from Grimes Graves in what is now Thetford Forest on the Norfolk / Suffolk   border near
Brandon.

Recently in the Summer of 2005 the remains of a Middle Bronze age  Urn burial came to light at the Naze, the
perforated rimmed bucket urn just over 30 Cm in height contained the cremated remains of a person from a nearby settlement. 

Also found recently May 2007 was a Cornish Greenstone axe found on the old Bronze age land surface at the
northern end of the Naze.  See photo below this is an interesting find as normally stone tools in this area are made of Flint. 

The fossils most people know Walton for are the various species of Sharks teeth found on the Beaches,  these can be found anywhere from the Pier through to the bottom of the Naze. Better quality specimens do tend to be found at the more northerly locations, but a good area where to find them if the beach is not to crowded is the beach in front of the Coastguard station.

Apart from the Eocene teeth you can also find fossil Crabs and Lobster and also assorted remains from bony fish everything from the teeth through to vertebra and nose spines, Ray teeth and Chimaeroid (Rabbit fish) teeth also turn up. There is also the slight chance you may find an example of fossil bird bone but as this is normally so fragile this is not likely, but occasionally it is pyritised and
Survives.

The other thing you are bound to find from the Eocene London Clay are the fossil plant remains these are mostly in the form of 
pyritised twigs or larger pieces are preserved as carbon, or even a mix of both, there are also a number of fossil seeds you can find on the beach, normally preserved as iron pyrites.  Sometimes you will find large nodules of Septaria a colloidal limestone  with fossil wood running through it but always check these nodules out as sometimes they contain other fossils such as fish or turtles or the crabs we have already mentioned.

The other fossils we find at the Naze are the late Pliocene early Pleistocene fossils from the Walton Red crag, these consist mostly of various species of shellfish, the commonest being the round Dog cockle, this is a bivalve that is a shell with two halves, another species of shell found here is the Gastropod Neptunia contraria or in English the Left Handed whelk, this species has a sinistrel or left hand spiral. Another commoner Gastropod found in the Crag is the snail like Necklace shell Natica.

The other thing found on the beach from the Red Crag are the pieces of Whale Bone, a lot of people think this brown shiny bone is Fossil wood.

If you are unsure what you have found either check out our online museum or come and see us at the N. E. T. stall next to the Café on the Naze, if you are unable to come up or we are not there you can always email us a photo of the object you have found and we will try to identify it online, if doing this please place a pound coin next to the object as a scale