Wealden Group

The Wealden Group is a sequence of rock strata in the lithostratigraphy of southern England, made up of paralic to continental freshwater facies, alternating sands deposited by ancient braided rivers on floodplains with clays laid down in lagoonal coastal-plain settings. It dates to the Early Cretaceous, spanning the late Berriasian through Aptian stages, roughly 140 to 125 million years ago, sitting atop the Purbeck Group and beneath the Lower Greensand Group. The group outcrops across a large part of south and southeastern England, including the Isle of Wight, taking its name from the Weald region spanning Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, though it is absent from northwest England, Wales and the areas around London and Essex, which stood as tectonic highs during deposition. It is notable for yielding many fossils, including the dinosaurs Iguanodon and Hypsilophodon, along with continental depositional features such as mudcracks and, occasionally, dinosaur footprints, as well as pterosaur fossils and other vertebrate remains. This entity documents the Wealden Group specifically as a geological formation, an Early Cretaceous continental and paralic sedimentary sequence.