Genesis and palaeogeographical significance of the Corton Diamicton (basal member of the North Sea Drift Formation), East Anglia, UK

ABSTRACT The principal river of the London basin, the Thames, has experienced a number of course changes during the Quaternary. Some, at least, of these are known to result directly from glaciation. In the early Quaternary the river flowed to the north of London across East Anglia to the north coast of Norfolk. By the early Middle Pleistocene it had changed its course to flow eastwards near the Suffolk - Essex border into the southern North Sea. The Thames valley to the north of London was blocked by ice during the Anglian/Elsterian glaciation, causing a series of glacial lakes to form. Overflow of these lakes brought the river into its modern valley through London. It is thought that this valley already existed by the Anglian in the form of a tributary of the north-flowing River Medway, which joined the old Thames valley near Clacton. Also during the Anglian/Elsterian glaciation. British and continental ice masses are thought to have joined in the northern part of the North Sea basin, causing a large lake to form between the east coast of England and the Netherlands. It is widely believed that the overflow from this lake caused the first breach in the Weald-Artois Ridge, bringing about the formation of the Strait of Dover. Prior to the glaciation the Thames, in common with rivers from the continent (including the Rhine and Meuse), flowed into the North Sea Basin. It seems that, after the lake overflow, these rivers together drained southwards into the English Channel. Whether this southern drainage route was adopted during all later periods of low sea level remains to be determined, but it seems certain that this was the case during the last glacial.

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The distribution, variation and origins of pre-Devensian tills in eastern England

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.1979.0083 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 287 (1024) ◽

pp. 535-570 ◽

Cited By ~ 109

Keyword(s):

Calcium Carbonate ◽

North Sea ◽

Heavy Minerals ◽

Ice Streams ◽

Mineral Contents ◽

East Anglia ◽

The North ◽

East Midlands ◽

The North Sea ◽

General Movement

In order to define quantitatively the lithological properties of the pre-Devensian tills in eastern England, calcium carbonate contents and mechanical compositions of 501 samples from 289 sites have been measured and heavy minerals counted in 102 of them. The results show that the tills may be divided into two groups: ( a ) a North Sea Drift group consisting of the Norwich Brickearth, the Cromer Tills, the Marly Drift of Cromer type and till members of the Contorted Drift, which is characterized by high sand and low opaque heavy mineral contents; and ( b ) a Lowestoft Till group including the Lowestoft Till of East Anglia, the Chalky Boulder Clay of the east Midlands, the Calcethorpe and Wragby Tills and the Lowestoft-type Marly Drift, which is characterized by low sand and high opaque values. The qualitative similarity of the mineral suites in the two groups, however, suggests a common origin in the North Sea basin. Automated contouring (SYMAP) has been used to represent the spatial distribution of till properties. These confirm that the Lowestoft Till group can be spatially separated from the North Sea Drift group, and divided into a Calcethorpe-Marly facies high in carbonates and lying astride the Wash, and a Lowestoft-Wragby facies with moderate but variable contents of calcium carbonate and occupying the rest of the region. Trend surface analysis has been applied to the Lowestoft Till group. At the first order level there are decreasing trends across the region, from northeast to southwest, in calcium carbonate, amphibole and epidote values and increasing trends in silt and clay. These are interpreted as showing a general movement from the North Sea of sandy and chalky material which became progressively modified by assimilation of Mesozoic clays. Higher order surfaces, particularly those of sand, garnet and amphibole values, point to the Wash as the focus of this glacial activity. It is proposed that the most vigorous stream of ice entered eastern England at this point, levelling the Cretaceous scarps and excavating the Jurassic clays of the Wash-Fens basin, and then fanned out into most of the region to deposit the clay-rich Lowestoft-Wragby facies. The Calcethorpe-Marly facies is considered to represent chalky North Sea material carried by marginal, and weaker, ice streams directly onto the Chalk of Lincolnshire and north Norfolk. The North Sea Drift group is believed to be the product of another ice body, penecontemporaneous with that depositing the Lowestoft group, which entered Norfolk from a more easterly part of the North Sea, incorporating sediments from this basin, but without crossing substantial outcrops of Jurassic or Lower Cretaceous formations or Tertiary clays. The Marly Drift includes a variant showing lithological affinities with both Lowestoft and Cromer Tills and which may be the product of complex interaction between the two ice sheets. All the tills studied seem most likely to be of Anglian age.

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The petrology of the North Sea Drift and Upper Glacial Brick-Earths in East Anglia

Proceedings of the Geologists Association ◽

10.1016/s0016-7878(16)80011-5 ◽

1916 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 79-98 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

P.G.H. Boswell

Keyword(s):

North Sea ◽

East Anglia ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea

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Coast erosion and sediment circulation on the coast of eastern England

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences ◽

10.1098/rsta.1972.0042 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 272 (1221) ◽

pp. 171-171

Keyword(s):

Recent Work ◽

North Sea ◽

Dynamic Topography ◽

East Anglia ◽

Thames Estuary ◽

Dutch Coast ◽

Southern North Sea ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea

Sediment is considered to travel southward along the English coast and northward along the Dutch coast and this has been interpreted as being part of a counter clockwise circulation in the North Sea. There is evidence that the transport along the English coast is interrupted at a number of places, e.g. the Wash and the Thames Estuary, placing major traps in its path and there are discontinuities in the bank formations due to reversal of movement off East Anglia. Recent work suggests that there are some well defined sediment streams in the southern North Sea with very restricted means of transfer from one stream to another. It is possible that in some sandwave fields we are observing fossil topography rather than present dynamic topography, e.g. in areas such as the Sandettie.

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The Last Scottish Ice Sheet

Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ◽

10.1017/s1755691018000038 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 110 (1-2) ◽

pp. 93-131 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Colin K. BALLANTYNE ◽

David SMALL

Keyword(s):

North Sea ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Irish Sea ◽

Ice Streams ◽

East Anglia ◽

Ice Cap ◽

The North ◽

Outer Hebrides ◽

Moray Firth ◽

The North Sea

ABSTRACTThe last Scottish Ice Sheet (SIS) expanded from a pre-existing ice cap after ∼35 ka. Highland ice dominated, with subsequent build-up of a Southern Uplands ice mass. The Outer Hebrides, Skye, Mull, the Cairngorms and Shetland supported persistent independent ice centres. Expansion was accompanied by ice-divide migration and switching flow directions. Ice nourished in Scotland reached the Atlantic Shelf break in some sectors but only mid-shelf in others, was confluent with the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet (FIS) in the North Sea Basin, extended into northern England, and fed the Irish Sea Ice Stream and a lobe that reached East Anglia. The timing of maximum extent was diachronous, from ∼30–27 ka on the Atlantic Shelf to ∼22–21 ka in Yorkshire. The SIS buried all mountains, but experienced periods of thickening alternating with drawdown driven by ice streams such as the Minch, the Hebrides and the Moray Firth Ice Streams. Submarine moraine banks indicate oscillating retreat and progressive decoupling of Highland ice from Orkney–Shetland ice. The pattern and timing of separation of the SIS and FIS in the North Sea Basin remain uncertain. Available evidence suggests that by ∼17 ka, much of the Sea of the Hebrides, the Outer Hebrides, Caithness and the coasts of E Scotland were deglaciated. By ∼16 ka, the Solway lowlands, Orkney and Shetland were deglaciated, the SIS and Irish Ice Sheet had separated, the ice margin lay along the western seaboard, nunataks had emerged in Wester Ross, the ice margin lay N of the Cairngorms and the sea had invaded the Tay and Forth estuaries. By ∼15 ka, most of the Southern Uplands, the Firth of Clyde, the Midland Valley and the upper Spey valley were deglaciated, and in NW Scotland ice was retreating from fjords and valleys. By the onset of rapid warming at ∼14.7 ka, much of the remnant SIS was confined within the limits of Younger Dryas glaciation. The SIS, therefore, lost most of its mass during the Dimlington Stade. It is uncertain whether fragments of the SIS persisted on high ground throughout the Lateglacial Interstade.

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Implements from the Glacial Deposits of North Norfolk

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia ◽

10.1017/s0958841800024285 ◽

1920 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 200-205

Author(s):

J. Cox

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

North Sea ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

East Anglia ◽

Terminal Moraine ◽

Glacial Origin ◽

Long Period ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea ◽

Boulder Clay

I discovered my first flint implement, a very fine Neolithic axe, in Gresham, in the year 1883, and this find led me to investigate the neighbourhood for other specimens. I was successful in finding many Neolithic implements of various kinds, which have from time to time been exhibited at the meetings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia.Shortly after my first finds, I commenced searching the gravels in the parish for “river drift” implements, but with very little success, as I soon found out that the gravel was of glacial origin, and the sandy surface of most of the district around was also glacial.The high ground to the north of Gresham consists of what is now fairly well known as the “Cromer-Holt ridge,” and is considered by Mr. F. W. Harmer, F.G.S., to be the terminal moraine of the North Sea ice sheet, built up while the glacier remained stationary for a long period, on its northward retreat. The numerous small valleys were formed by waters from the melting ice while the glacier was in its stationary stage, and may also have been influenced by the later glacier which deposited the chalky boulder clay.

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A Comparison of the Pleistocene of East Anglia with that of Germany

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ◽

10.1017/s0079497x00021344 ◽

1937 ◽

Vol 3 (1-2) ◽

pp. 136-157 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Friedrich E. Zeuner

Keyword(s):

North Sea ◽

Presidential Address ◽

East Anglia ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea ◽

Boulder Clay

For many years, Professor P. G. H. Boswell has studied the Pleistocene deposits of East Anglia and, from time to time, published most illuminating reviews summarising the progress of work and discussing the possible relations to the corresponding deposits of other districts (especially 1931, 1932, 1936). In his Presidential Address to the Prehistoric Society last year, he paid particular attention to a problem which has often been attacked but not yet solved satisfactorily, namely the correlation of East Anglia with the Continent; and he suggested, as a possible way out of the difficulties, the correlation of the Hunstanton Boulder Clay with Würm 2, the Upper Chalky Drift with Würm 1, the Great Chalky Boulder Clay with Riss, the North Sea Drift with Mindel, and the later Crag deposits containing a cold fauna, with Günz. He admitted, however, that such a correlation would ‘bring other difficulties in its train.’

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The Freston Causewayed Enclosure

Documenta Praehistorica ◽

10.4312/dp.48.6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 48 ◽

pp. 2-25

Author(s):

Tristan Carter ◽

Nathaniel Jackson ◽

Rose Moir ◽

Dana Challinor ◽

Charlotte Diffey

Keyword(s):

North Sea ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

East Anglia ◽

Farming Communities ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea

Current models view southeast England as where Neolithic lifeways were first introduced to Britain from continental Europe c. 4000 cal BC, however, there has been little work detailing this process in coastal East Anglia. In 2019, work at the Freston causewayed enclosure provided the first view of a major gathering space associated with semi-mobile farming communities of the Early Neolithic in the county of Suffolk and located on a major estuary close to the North Sea. Excavation produced a rich assemblage of worked flint and Mildenhall Ware pottery (potentially for feasting), plus evidence for the consumption of cereals and hazelnuts.

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