The information on this page is a summary description.
The full formal description is available here: Broechem Bed
| Abbreviation | LiBr |
| Parent unit | Lillo Formation |
| Child units | |
| Lithological description | The sediment composition is a fine quartz sand unlike the other glauconite rich Neogene units in the area. Due to the near absence of observed glauconite, the bed is attributed to the Lillo Formation, for which it now forms the oldest known deposit. Lag characteristics are present such as some coarse-grained quartz admixture, worn glauconite pellets, fish teeth and shell fragments, and some flint and phosphoritic sandstone pebbles. In addition, individual sandstone nodules themselves eroded from the Broechem Bed were observed as basal load of overlying stratigraphic units, such as the Luchtbal Member (Wesselingh et al., 2020). |
| Age | Zanclean, early Pliocene. |
| Thickness | A few dm only. |
| Area of occurrence | The Broechem Bed has been observed in the southeast of the Antwerp area. |
| Type locality | At present the observations of the Broechem Bed are still very limited. In the present LIS, the type Broechem Bed refers to the Broechem Unit or Unit 3 as described by Wesselingh et al. (2020). The etymology refers to temporary outcrops related to the construction of a water basin between Broechem and Oelegem, from which a lot of ‘Broechem nodules’ were collected, and of which accounts on the fauna found within and its age were published by Marquet (1980) and van Baekel et al. (2003). At Antwerp International Airport (AIA), this fauna is found in brown-reddish spherical sandstone nodules of up to circa 15 cm long, partially as moulds and include often paired large bivalves including Cyrtodaria angusta, Arctica islandica, Acanthocardia aff. aculeata, Cardiidae indet., Callista chione and Pygocardia rustica forma tumida. |
| Alternative names | Broechem Unit or Unit 3 (Wesselingh et al. (2020) |
| Authors | Vandenberghe, N., Goolaerts, S. & Wesselingh, F. |
| Date | 01/09/2023 |
| Cite as | Vandenberghe, N., Goolaerts, S. & Wesselingh, F., 2023. The Broechem Bed, 01/09/2023. National Commission for Stratigraphy Belgium. http://ncs.naturalsciences.be/lithostratigraphy/Broechem-Bed |
