banner Return to the AHOB homepage

Bacon Hole
Swansea

 

 

Site Number 3 (This is an AHOB Key Site)
Nearest Town: Southgate
National Grid Reference: SS56178672
Lat: 51.561 Lon: -4.0763

Bacon Hole is a large cave chamber of unknown age developed on a prominent fault in the Carboniferous Limestone cliffs of the south coast of the Gower Peninsula. In common with the nearby sites of Boscos Den and Minchin Hole, Bacon Hole appears to be a terrestrial cave which has been opened up and heavily modified by successive phases of marine erosion during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. A well stratified sequence of deposits formed by both marine and terrestrial processes has yielded a succession of vertebrate assemblages spanning part of the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 cold stage, much of the MIS 5 interglacial complex (the “Last Interglacial”), and the early stages of MIS 4, the Early Devensian cold stage. This is a key site in linking the record of Later Pleistocene high sea level events to the terrestrial sequence, for establishing the stratigraphic relationship between distinctive mammal assemblages and for providing dating evidence which helps to delimit the timing of the presence of these animal communities in Britain. [APC]


Horizons recorded at Bacon Hole

Unit Name Epoch Biozone MIS
Unit J (Horz Num: 253) Late Pleistocene Banwell Bone Cave MAZ 5a
Unit G - I (Horz Num: 251) Late Pleistocene Bacon Hole MAZ 5c
Unit F flowstone (Horz Num: 615) Late Pleistocene Bacon Hole MAZ 5c
Unit E - F (Horz Num: 3) Late Pleistocene Joint Mitnor Cave MAZ 5e
Unit D (Horz Num: 618) Late Pleistocene Joint Mitnor Cave MAZ 5e
Unit B - C (Horz Num: 250) Late Pleistocene Joint Mitnor Cave MAZ 5e

footer
Indiana University AHOB Website Contact Administrator Indiana University AHOB Website