Pleistocene glaciation of Fenland, England, and its implications for evolution of the region
TL;DR: Detailed investigation of landforms and their underlying deposits on the eastern margin of Fenland, East Anglia, demonstrated that they represent a series of glaciofluvial delta-fan and related sediments, a period during which fluvial and periglacial activity modified the landscape under cold climates, and organic sediments were laid down during a warmer event.
Abstract: Detailed investigation of landforms and their underlying deposits on the eastern margin of Fenland, East Anglia, demonstrated that they represent a series of glaciofluvial delta-fan and related sediments. Associated with these deposits are glacially dislocated sediments including tills, meltwater and pre-existing fluvial sediments. These ‘Skertchly Line’ deposits occur in the context of a substantial ice lobe that entered Fenland from the N to NE, dammed the streams entering the basin and caused glacial lakes to form in the valleys on the margins. Bulldozing by the ice lobe caused a series of ice-pushed ridges to form at the dynamic margin, especially at the ice maximum and during its retreat phases. Meltwater formed a series of marginal fans that coalesced into marginal accumulations in the SE of the basin. The ice lobe is named the Tottenhill glaciation. Further investigations of the Fenland margin have revealed the extent of the Tottenhill glaciation in the Fenland Basin, to the south and west, in sufficient detail to demonstrate the nature of the Tottenhill ice lobe and the landscape left on deglaciation. The ice lobe is likely to have been prone to surging. This is indicated by the low gradient of the ice lobe, the presence of underlying ductile Mesozoic clays, the evidence of ice-marginal flooding and the presence of arcuate glaciotectonic push moraines. Regional correlation, supported by independent numerical geochronology, indicates that the glaciation occurred ca 160 ka, i.e. during the late Middle Pleistocene, Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6, the Wolstonian Stage. Comparison and correlation across the southern North Sea Basin confirms that the glaciation is the equivalent of that during the Late Saalian Drenthe Stadial in The Netherlands. The implications of this correlation are presented. Before the glaciation occurred, the Fenland Basin did not exist. It appears to have been initiated by a subglacial tunnel valley system beneath the Anglian (=Elsterian, MIS 12) ice sheet. During the subsequent Hoxnian (=Holsteinian; approx. MIS 11) interglacial, the sea invaded the drainage system inherited following the glacial retreat. The evolution through the subsequent ca 200 ka Early to Middle Wolstonian substages, the interval between the Hoxnian (Holsteinian) temperate Stage and the Wolstonian glaciation, represents a period during which fluvial and periglacial activity modified the landscape under cold climates, and organic sediments were laid down during a warmer event. Palaeolithic humans were also periodically present during this interval, their artefacts having been reworked by the subsequent glaciation. The deglaciation was followed by re-establishment of the rivers associated with the deposition of Late Wolstonian (Warthe Stadial) gravels and sands, and later, deposits of the Ipswichian interglacial (=Eemian, approx. MIS 5e) including freshwater, then estuarine sediments. Subsequent evolution of the basin occurred during the Devensian Stage (=Weichselian, MIS 5d-2) under predominantly cold, periglacial conditions.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors summarize the current knowledge on the spatial and temporal patterns of glacial activity in the Iberian mountains during the Late Quaternary and present-day.
69 citations
TL;DR: In the last ten 100 ka glacial cycles, ice volume was driven by solar radiation flux in the Northern Hemisphere and early minima in solar radiation combined with critical levels of atmospheric CO2 drove initial glacier expansion.
68 citations
Cites background from "Pleistocene glaciation of Fenland, ..."
...This has again been correlated with MIS 6 (Gibbard et al., 2011; 2018) and represents the second-largest recorded glaciation in eastern Britain, smaller than the earlier Anglian Stage glaciation (MIS 12) and larger than the later Devensian Stage glaciation (MIS 5d–2)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that global glaciations have varied in size and magnitude since the Early-Middle Pleistocene transition (~773 ka), despite the apparent regular and high-amplitude 100 ka pacing of glacial-interglacial cycles recorded in marine isotope records.
42 citations
Cites result from "Pleistocene glaciation of Fenland, ..."
...It is therefore possible that the ice sheets over Ireland and Scotland in MIS 8 and 10 were very active, possibly reaching the Atlantic continental shelf, as in the last glacial–interglacial cycle (Stoker and Bradwell, 2005; Bradwell et al., 2007; Peters et al., 2016), but that this was not matched by extensive ice farther east over England and Wales or continental Europe....
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...In contrast, as in the Netherlands, recent dating evidence from eastern England has confirmed that a major glaciation did occur in MIS 6 (Evans et al., 2019) confirming the Wolstonian (= Saalian) age of a glaciation that reached into the Fenland basin in eastern England (Gibbard et al., 2018)....
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...As with the MIS 8 evidence, there are some isolated age determinations that did hint at possible MIS 10–age glacial advances (e.g., Scourse et al., 1999) in the Nar Valley area of Norfolk in eastern England....
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01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that an extensive Glacial Lake Lymn was dammed in the southern Lincolnshire Wolds by the NSL ice margin at the Stickney Moraine.
Abstract: During the last (MIS 2) and older glaciations of the North Sea, a North Sea Lobe (NSL) of the British-Irish Ice Sheet flowed onshore and terminated on the lowlands of eastern England, constructing inset sequences of either substantial ice-marginal deposits and tills or only a thin till veneer, indicative of complex and highly dynamic glaciological behaviour. The glaciation limit represented by the Marsh Tills and the Stickney and Horkstow Moraines in Lincolnshire is regarded as the maximum margin of the NSL during MIS 2 and was attained at ∼19.5 ka as determined by OSL dating of overridden lake sediments at Welton le Wold. A later ice marginal position is recorded by the Hogsthorpe-Killingholme Moraine belt, within which ice-walled lake plains indicate large scale ice stagnation rapidly followed ice advance at ∼18.4 ka based on dates from supraglacial lake deposits. The NSL advanced onshore in North Norfolk slightly earlier constructing a moraine ridge at Garrett Hill at ∼21.5ka. In addition to the large ice-dammed lakes in the Humber and Wash lowlands, we propose that an extensive Glacial Lake Lymn was dammed in the southern Lincolnshire Wolds by the NSL ice margin at the Stickney Moraine. Previous proposals that older glacier limits might be recorded in the region, lying between MIS 2 and MIS 12 deposits, are verified by our OSL dates on the Stiffkey moraine, which lies immediately outside the Garrett Hill moraine and appears to be of MIS 6 age.
24 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: Glaciers and Glaciation as discussed by the authors is a classic textbook for all students of glaciation, and it has established a reputation as a comprehensive and essential resource for students of glaciers.
Abstract: Glaciers and Glaciation is the classic textbook for all students of glaciation. Stimulating and accessible, it has established a reputation as a comprehensive and essential resource.
In this new edition, the text, references, and illustrations have been thoroughly updated to give today's reader an up-to-the minute overview of the nature, origin, and behavior of glaciers and the geological and geomorphological evidence for their past history on earth.
The first part of the book investigates the processes involved in forming glacier ice, the nature of glacier/climate relationships, the mechanisms of glacier flow, and the interactions of glaciers with other natural systems such as rivers, lakes, and oceans.
In the second part, the emphasis moves to landforms and sediment, the interpretation of the earth's glacial legacy, and the reconstruction of glacial depositional environments and palaeoglaciology.
1,704 citations
"Pleistocene glaciation of Fenland, ..." refers background in this paper
...[125]), each of which could have conceivably been instrumental in the formation of the Fenland ridges operating either independently or in concert....
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TL;DR: A lithofacies code is presented in this paper for the rapid description and visual appraisal of field sequences or drill cores containing unconsolidated diamicts or lithified diamictites; the term till is not used as it has a strict genetic definition referring to direct aggregation and deposition by glacier ice.
Abstract: Increased knowledge of modern glacial depositional environments has resulted in rapidly evolving classifications of glacial tills. These are based to a large degree on theoretical considerations of likely depositional processes. The classifications are sophisticated and more advanced than the establishment of simple field criteria whereby individual till facies can be identified in Quaternary and Pre-Quaternary successions. This situation is compounded in many Quaternary terrains by the continued description of ‘tills’ in terms of laboratory-derived analytical data only, reflecting a traditional interest in stratigraphic correlation rather than reconstruction of depositional environment. Detailed sedimentological logging of lithofacies is rarely undertaken. There is thus considerable confusion as to what is being described or sampled when analytical data are presented for many Pleistocene ‘tills’. The same remarks apply to Pre-Pleistocene ‘tillites’.
A lithofacies code is presented here for the rapid description and visual appraisal of field sequences or drill cores containing unconsolidated diamicts or lithified diamictites; the term‘till’is not used as it has a strict genetic definition referring to direct aggregation and deposition by glacier ice. Use of a four part code, in conjunction with codes already published for fluvial sediments, allows fundamental field properties to be depicted independent of genetic terminology and provides a firm basis for subsequent environmental interpretation and analytical work. The value of this approach is illustrated by comparing a representative suite of vertical profiles of diamict assemblages deposited by modern grounded glaciers with a classic late Pleistocene glacigenic sequence at Scarborough Bluffs, Ontario.
654 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1976
491 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a complete and optimized scheme of lettered marine isotope substages spanning the last 1.0 million years is proposed, based on the LR04 stack of marine benthic oxygen isotope records, and thus it is grounded in a continuous record responsive largely to changes in ice volume that are inherently global.
408 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, high-resolution continuous core material, geophysical measurements and hundreds of archived core descriptions enabled to identify 13 Late Pleistocene Rhine-Meuse sedimentary units in the infill of the southern part of the North Sea basin (the Netherlands, northwestern Europe).
242 citations