Williams & Esteves_Medmerry, W. Sussex, U.K.

Medmerry, West Sussex, U.K.

Photographed by Jon Williams and Luciana S. Esteves

   A long spell of stormy weather affected the coast of south of England from mid-Dec 2013 to early Jan 2014 causing widespread flooding and extreme coastal erosion. At Medmerry (West Sussex), beach erosion exposed well-preserved shore-normal mud runnels in Pleistocene strata (Photo taken on 11 January 2014). The gravel normally covering the beach was deposited as overwash fans c. 150 m inland. At the same location, mud runnels exposed of during a storm on 24th October 1891 were reported by Reid (1992) indicating that such erosion episodes are recurrent and the occasionally exposed relict mud features seem to be largely unaffected.