Upper Cretaceous radiolarians reworked in the Eocene London Clay Formation, SE England

Abstract. Radiolarians were recently discovered in the lower Eocene London Clay Formation of the London Basin from samples in a drainage borehole in the River Thames. They come from a c. 10 m thick sequence of silty shales in the lower part of the formation. The radiolarians are, in general, rather poorly preserved, with the exception of six samples that yielded moderately preserved radiolarians that allowed the identification of eighteen taxa. All radiolarians observed are of Late Cretaceous age and they are therefore reworked into the lower part of the Eocene London Clay Formation. The best preserved sample yielded an assemblage of twelve morphospecies, including Diacanthocapsa ovoidea, Theocapsomma amphora and Theocapsomma sp. aff. T. amphora sensu Popova-Goll et al. 2005, suggesting an original Santonian–Campanian age, and more likely only the Campanian. However, the stratigraphic origin of these radiolarians from the Upper Cretaceous sequence of the London Basin is uncertain.