Island geology

The Island was formed as the result of complex tectonic movements that produced a

central east-west ridge of steeply dipping hardened chalk (shown in pale blue on the geological map below). To the north of this monocline are Paleogene sediments, to the south Lower Cretaceous rocks.

Geological excursions round the Isle of Wight, and along the adjacent coast of Dorsetshire; illustrative of the most interesting geological phenomena, and organic remains. By Gideon Algernon Mantell

The Isle of Wight has been a centre of geological and palaeontological interest since the

early part of the 19th century. The Isle of Wight has always been seen as being of great

importance to British geology and palaeontology and was given the name of the

“diamond in the crown of British geology” by P. M. Hopson in his 2011 paper in the

Proceeding of the Geologists Association.

This website is not designed to explore the fascinating geology of the Isle of Wight, as

this has been done in several excellent publications, a selection of these guides and

books is listed below:

• Gale, A. 2019. The Isle of Wight. Geologists Association Guide No 60. (ISBN 978

• 0900717 96 3)

• Hopson, P.M. and Farrant, A.R. 2015. Geology of the Isle of Wight.

• British Geological Survey. (ISBN 10:0852727720).

• Osborne White, H.J. 1921. A short account of the geology of the Isle of Wight. British

• Geological Survey. (ISBN 0 11 880739 0)

Website run by Dr Ian West which has some excellent information about the Island at:

https://wessexcoastgeology.soton.ac.uk/wight.htm

Fossil Identification guidebooks

There are many excellent identification guides to the Island’s fossils, here are some of them:

• British Mesozoic Fossils, The Natural History Museum. (ISBN 978 0 565 09319 8)

• British Cenozoic Fossils, The Natural History Museum. (ISBN 978 0 565 09305 1)

• Batten, D. J (ed). 2011. English Wealden Fossils. (ISBN 978 1 4443 6711 9)

• Lomax, D. & Tamura, N. 2014. Dinosaurs of the British Isles. (ISBN 978 0 9574530 50)

• Martill, D & D Naish, D. (eds). 2001. Dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight. (ISBN 0 90170272 2)

• Smith, A. & D Batten, D. (eds). 2002. Fossils of the Chalk. (ISBN 0 901 702 78 1)

• Young, J., Gale, A., Knight, R., and Smith, A. (eds) 2016. Fossils of the Gault Clay. (ISBN 978 1 4443 3542 2)

Website for Eocene and Oligocene fossils of the north coast:

https://www.dmap.co.uk/fossils/