British Permian fossil reptile sites

Abstract

British Permian time can be grouped into two broad units, an earlier phase of predominantly terrestrial deposition and a later phase characterized by greater marine influence. The Early Permian of the British Isles, and also of much of northern Europe, was mostly a time of terrestrial subaerial erosion with desiccation of newly uplifted areas that had been generated during the final phases of the Variscan Orogeny. A large number of faultbounded sedimentary basins developed, with the creation of wide-ranging facies variations of coarse- and fine-grained sediments as well as evaporites. Later in the Early Permian, aeolian deposits and evaporites became dominant, indicating a prevailing arid climate. The sediments were deposited in a westward extension of the German Dutch basin and are known as the Rotliegendes. By the end of the Early Permian, Britain had been reduced to a gently rolling peneplain (Smith et al., 1974; Smith, 1989; Smith and Taylor, 1992), which was largely an inhospitable desert.