This guide covers a significant part of southern Hampshire, a part of West Sussex
and the Isle of Wight. The region is founded on Cretaceous and Palaeogene
bedrock, the younger forming the final phase of sedimentation of the Hampshire
Basin. The bedrock is covered by a thick and extensive succession of Quaternary
superficial deposits subdivided into a number of units that represent a long
Quaternary history as the landscape was denuded through numerous periglacial/
temperate climatic cycles
