2.3. Diest Formation - Di

Authors: De Meuter & Laga (1976), after Dumont (1839).

Description: grey green to brownish, at most coarse, locally clayey, glauconiferous sand often with sandstone layers; mainly without fossils, except the very local Deurne and Dessel Sands Members; well developed basal gravel with small rounded flint pebbles and locally with bone fragments and shark teeth.

Stratotype: exposures at the former town fortress of Diest.

Area: exposures on the hill tops of northeastern Brabant, southwestern Antwerp and western Limburg provinces; deep borings of the more northern parts of Antwerp and Limburg provinces.

Thickness: 70 m in the type locality, and up to 185 m in the middle of the deeply eroded channels.

Members: the formation is divided in the Deurne Sands Mbr (Antwerp area) and the Dessel Sands Mbr (Campine area).

Age: Tortonian - early Messinian.

Remarks: the formation is also discussed by de Heinzelin & Glibert (1957), Glibert & de Heinzelin (1955), Gulinck (1963), Laga & De Meuter (1973), Louwye & Laga (1998), Louwye et al. (1999), Nyst (1861b).