Talk:Wealden Group

Supergroup?
How can the Wealden be both a 'group' and a 'supergroup'? There is no reference to a Wealden Supergroup within the BGS lexicon of rock units - see http://www.bgs.ac.uk/Lexicon. It looks to me like it was a mistake to have renamed this page from 'Wealden Group'. cheers Geopersona (talk) 07:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * 'Wealden supergroup' appears to have been introduced by Radley in 2004 and taken up by others since then. To quote Benson et al. 2009 "While the term ' Wealden Group' was previously applied to the Lower Cretaceous strata of both the Wessex Sub-basin and the more northern Weald Sub-basin, we here follow Radley (2004) in restricting the term to the Wessex Formation and younger Vectis Formation, and in using the term Wealden Supergroup for the Wealden Group, the Weald Clay Group (Hauterivian-Barremian) of the the Weald Sub-basin, and the older Hastings Beds Group (Berriasian-Valanginian) of the Weald Sub-basin.". Mikenorton (talk) 08:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This is what I was following in renaming the page. The stratigraphic chart can be seen here. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * How very confusing! Geopersona (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * From The Wealden Supergroup is a group . . . onwards, the situation remains confusing for anyone reading the page - anyone care to insert some explanatory test into the article to justify what appears. I don't feel able to do so myself. cheers Geopersona (talk) 09:34, 31 October 2014 (UTC)


 * After another six years, there is no evidence that "Supergroup" has become the preferred designation for this sequence over "Group". GoogleScholar results are still running at a steady 4:1 Group:Supergroup, including 2017 and 2018 so far. The BGS show no signs of changing, so I intend to switch the article name back while mentioning that some regard it as a supergroup. Mikenorton (talk) 10:51, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Moved back. Mikenorton (talk) 15:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

The difference between "Wealden Group" and "Wealden facies"
While I think the debate between the use of "Wealden Group" vs "Wealden Supergroup" seems decisively resolved in the former's favour (It only seems to be paleontologists that use the latter for whatever reason). I think a more interesting discussion is the debate about the "Wealden Group" vs "Wealden Facies". In the UK the geological idea of the "Wealden" is quite clear as the Late Berriasian to Early Aptian sequence of non-marine sediment overlying the Purbeck Group and underlying the Lower Greensand Group containing the familiar sequences in the Wessex and Weald basins and the oft forgotten marginal Whitchurch Sand Formation. However in mainland (particularly western) Europe the term "Wealden" seems to have taken on a similar, broader meaning to apply to all non-marine sediments of a similar age to the familiar Wealden Group. In particular this name has been given since to the early 19th century to Berriasian-Valanginian aged deposits of the Lower Saxony Basin in Germany today termed the Bückeberg Formation, a good summary is given in this book chapter. Another noted use is in Belgium, particularly in the Mons Basin such as those of the Sainte-Barbe Clays Formation. The Mons basin is unusual and complex compared to the wessex and weald basins as it is of very limited extent and subsidence (~300m), as well as having the main mechanism for subsidence being deep evaporite dissolution in the mississippian basement,causing the basin to have several deep breccia filled sinkholes. (This book chapter on researchgate gives a good summary) The "wealden" deposits of belgium are of Barremian-Aptian age, so they are coeval with the Weald clay and upper Wessex-vectis formations. The dutch wikipedia article also describes the Wealden Group as being in Belgium, though it also doesn't seem to realise the Wealden also exists in the Weald Basin, only saying it is divided into the wessex and vectis formations. The french article describes the Wealden Group as being present in France on the other side of the Weald-Artois anticline, south of Calais. France seem to lack a lexicon of rock units like the BGS and I don't really have a grasp of the Early Cretaceous succession of the Paris Basin.

Given this, I think it's a good idea that this article has a section discussing the uses of the term "Wealden" more generally in Europe, thoughts? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:12, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Merger Proposal
I have proposed that the Hastings Beds article be merged into this one, as the Hastings Beds are a largely depreciated subgrouping of the Wealden Group, and the Hastings beds doesn't warrant a separate article as a subgroup as the wealden group is already quite a short article. I also think that the paleobiota table shouldn't be merged into the wealden group article, but that the relevant entries should be added to the constituent formations. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:16, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
 * No strong feelings either way though if it helps clear up some of the confusion around the status of both strat units then good.cheers Geopersona (talk) 06:59, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It makes sense to me. Mikenorton (talk) 19:43, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

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