Geology Site Account

East Tilbury Marshes is the type site of the East Tilbury Marshes Gravel, which underlies the alluvium of the modern Thames floodplain. The gravel is therefore not present at the surface but has been extensively quarried at East Tilbury. These quarries are the only exposure of this gravel, which was deposited by the Thames when it was a large, braided river flowing across a wide floodplain during a period of cold climate. It dates from the early mid-Devensian stage of the Ice Age and is probably about 80,000 years old.

In 1988 it was reported in the local newspaper that a mammoth tooth had been found by the operator of an excavator at the East Tilbury quarry and donated to Thurrock Museum