To the east is the wide fertile Severn Vale, floored by Triassic 'New Red' sandstones and marls of the Mercia Mudstone Group (formerly known as the 'Keuper Marls'), and Jurassic lias clays further east. The Triassic deposits were formed in a Sahara -like desert when the British Isles lay about 15 degrees north of the equator, whereas the clays represent deep-water sediments. The landscape here is flattish, with the only feature of note a rather weak low scarp which meanders across the vale from SW to NE marking the Triassic/Jurassic border. This is superbly illustrated at the ‘Garden Cliff’, Westbury-on-Severn (see picture), where the river Severn has sliced a convenient ‘cut-away’ section of this transition from the red Triassic marls, through the thin Penarth Group (formerly 'Rhaetic') strata, to the lias clays and limestones of the lower Jurassic.