Bibliography - Martin R. Bates
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The Chronology, Palaeogeography and Archaeological Significance of the Marine Quaternary Record of the West Sussex Coastal Plain, Southern England, UK, by M. R. Bates and others, published 1997 in Quaternary Science reviews (vol. 16, no. 10, article, pp.1227-1252) accessible at: British Library

Late Middle Pleistocene deposits at Norton Farm on the West Sussex coastal plain, southern England, by Martin R. Bates and others, published January 2000 in Journal of Quaternary Science (vol. 15, issue 1, article, pp.61-89) accessible at: British Library   View Online

The coastal plain of West Sussex, southern England, is internationally important because of the sequence of discrete high-sea-level events preserved at various elevations across it. New evidence is presented from a site at Norton Farm, near Chichester, on the Lower Coastal Plain, where Pleistocene marine sands, fining upwards into silts, occur between 5.3 m and 9.1 m OD. The sequence reflects a regressive tendency at the transition from an interglacial to a cold stage. The marine sands have yielded foraminifera, ostracods and molluscs that indicate a declining marine influence through the sequence, culminating in a tidal mudflat, strongly weathered in places. Cool-climate foraminifera (including Elphidium clavatum, Cassidulina reniformis and Elphidium albiumbilicatum) and ostracods have been recovered from the marine sands. Some species with an apparent preference for warmer water conditions, however, are also present. Freshwater taxa washed into the terminal marine sediments include some cold climate indicators, such as Pisidium stewarti and P. obtusale lapponicum. Additional evidence for cool climatic conditions during the deposition of the upper part of the marine sequence is provided by the lack of tree taxa in the pollen record and by features of the micromorphology. The marine sediments probably began accumulating during OIS 7, a conclusion based on their elevation, on amino acid ratios from shells, but especially on vertebrate evidence, particularly the presence of a small form of horse, together with a large, distinctive, form of northern vole (Microtus oeconomus). The occurrence of cool climate indicators in these marine sediments may demonstrate a lag between the climatic deterioration and the expected glacio-eustatic fall in relative sea-level. This evidence appears to support the conclusions drawn from the study of coral terraces in Barbados. Such a scenario would provide the conditions necessary for the emplacement of the large erratic boulders reported from the Lower Coastal Plain of West Sussex.

The meeting of the waters: raised beaches and river gravels of the Sussex Coastal Plain/Hampshire Basin, by M. R. Bates and others, published January 2001 in Lithic Studies Occasional Paper; Palaeolithic archaeology of the Solvent river; Southampton, 2000 (article, pp.27-46) accessible at: British Library

River terrace sequences: templates for Quaternary geochronology and marine-terrestrial correlation, by David Bridgland, Darrel Maddy and Martin Bates, published February 2004 in Journal of Quaternary Science (vol. 19, issue 2, article, pp.203-218)   View Online

Fluvial sequences, particularly terrace staircases, represent archives of Quaternary palaeoclimatic fluctuation and can serve as stratigraphical frameworks for geochronology and for correlation with other depositional environments, in particular, the global marine oxygen isotope record. Fluvial lithostratigraphical frameworks also provide contexts for records, from fossils and artefacts, of faunal evolution and human occupation; conversely, both records can be means of relative dating of riverine sequences.
Three fluvial sequences are examined as case studies. First is the Severn-Avon system in the English Midlands, which has biostratgraphical evidence and an amino acid geochronology, together with marker inputs from three different glaciations. The Somme sequence of northern France, famous for its Palaeolithic artefact assemblages, again has biostratigraphy and an amino acid geochronology and has also been dated with reference to overlying loess/palaeosols sequences. The fluvial terraces of the River Arun, the final case study, lack dating evidence but are interspersed within the Sussex raised beach staircase. Although various lines of evidence suggest that the rivers discussed have formed terraces in response to climatic fluctuation, an intriguing difference is that interglacial sediments occur at the bases of terrace formations in the Severn-Avon, whereas in the Somme they occur at the tops of sequences, beneath loessic overburden. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.