The Leighton Buzzard district is of national importance as a source of industrial sand and fuller's earth products, won from the Woburn Sands Formation of early Cretaceous age. This memoir, with the new 1:50 000 sheet it describes, provides a comprehensive modern account of the geology.

This second edition of 'The Geology of England and Wales' is considerably expanded from its predecessor, reflecting the increase in our knowledge of the region, and particularly of the offshore areas. Forty specialists have contributed to 18 chapters, which cover a time range from 700 million years ago to 200 million years into the future. A new format places all the chapters in approximately temporal order. Both offshore and economic geology now form an integral part of appropriate chapters.