Correlation of Thames terrace deposits between the Lower Thames, eastern Essex and the submerged offshore continuation of the Thames—Medway valley

Middle Pleistocene interglacial deposits at Barling, Essex, England: evidence for a longer chronology for the Thames terrace sequence

“…3). It should be noted that this terrace staircase continues offshore, where three further submerged terraces have been identified (Bridgland et al, 1993;Bridgland and D'Olier, 1995). Gruhn et al (1974) identified four and the Geological Survey three terraces within what is here termed Low-level East Essex Gravel.…”

“…It has been 816 JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE shown that this is a fluvial terrace system belonging to a now drowned offshore valley (D'Olier, 1975;Bridgland et al, 1993;Bridgland and D'Olier, 1995), an extension of the Thames-Medway, which, prior to the Holocene transgression, flowed northeastwards towards Clacton. Analysis of the gravel at Barling and elsewhere in the area has revealed that the higher terraces in this staircase are formed of different gravel, which contains flint and southern rocks such as Greensand chert but lacks a distinctive suite of far-travelled rocks that appears in the lower terraces.…”

Integrated chronological control on an archaeologically significant Pleistocene river terrace sequence: the Thames-Medway, eastern Essex, England

“…It is possible that this gravel represents a marginal deposit associated with the Barling Gravel, predating a final incision and deposition event that is recorded further east at Barling and Shoeburyness. Given the small number of aliquots and preliminary nature of these OSL dates, there is still a small possibility that this gravel is an eroded remnant of the Southchurch Gravel as argued by Roe (1994) and Bridgland et al (1993), but this seems unlikely. The MIS 8 age estimate for this gravel deposit is younger than any of the ages suggested by previous authors, who suggested that it dated from MIS 12 (Bridgland, 2003), or MIS 12 or 10 (Roe and Preece, in press).…”

“…(There is also a conflict with the Rochford Gravel, but all authors recognise the complexity of this area and the provisional nature of their age estimates). Bridgland has consistently (1988,2003,2006) correlated the Barling Gravel with MIS 8 based both on the fact that it directly overlies channel deposits laid down during MIS 9 at both Barling (Bridgland et al, 2001) and Shoeburyness (Roe, 1994; and on the basis of downstream correlation with the Thames sequence (Bridgland et al, 1993). This latter line of evidence suggests that during MIS 6, gravels were being deposited noticeably further east and at lower altitudes beneath Foulness Island (Figure 1).…”

“…Following this, the substantially larger Thames gradually overwhelmed the Medway, and the distribution of the lower, more southerly, gravel units shows that the Thames-Medway gradually migrated clockwise to its current position (e.g. Bridgland et al, 1993), with the Medway now clearly established as a south bank tributary of the Thames. A number of different nomenclatures and correlations have been proposed for these deposits (Table 1).…”