Glacial erosion of the Wash and Fen basin and the deposition of the chalky till of eastern England

Clayton, Keith

doi:10.1016/s0277-3791(99)00038-4

Cited by 32 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…17), indicating significant subglacial erosion (presumably, during the Wragby Glaciation) in this locality. Farther downstream, the initial development of the Wash is thought to have been a consequence of Anglian subglacial erosion; ice flowing southwestward through the area now occupied by this embayment breached what had previously been a ridge in the Chalk, forming a southeastward continuation of the Lincolnshire Wolds and the NE valley-side of the Bytham system (e.g., Perrin et al, 1979;Clayton, 2000). The pre-Wragby-glaciation Trent would have entered the North Sea through this breach; if the ~0.4 m km -1 longitudinal gradient persisted downstream, this river is predicted to have flowed at a level of ~-40 m O.D.…”

Section: Drainage Reconstruction Immediately Before the Wragby Glaciamentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of uplift modelling in the reconstruction of drainage development and landscape evolution in the repeatedly glaciated Trent catchment, English Midlands, UK

Westaway

Bridgland

White

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the Geologists' Association

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Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractThe Trent Valley Palaeolithic Project has recently investigated the Quaternary evolution of the River Trent, the northernmost river system in western Europe with a documented long-timescale terrace staircase. The uppermost and lowermost reaches of the Trent, which drains the English Midlands, were glaciated during Marine oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 2, but older fluvial terraces dating back to MIS 8 are preserved in the remainder of the catchment, delineating the former course through the Lincoln Gap and across the Fen Basin (the modern course to the Humber estuary dating only from the latest Pleistocene). Numerical modelling enables lateral variations in uplift across the catchment to be deduced from differences in height of these fluvial terraces above the modern valley floor. Uplift rates thus indicated over the last two climate cycles attain values of 0.08 mm a 1 around Nottingham and Derby in the middle reach of the Trent, but are significantly lower elsewhere in the catchment; these variations are shown to relate to lateral variations in crustal properties, primarily variations in radioactive heat production in the underlying continental crust. Glaciation during the late Middle Pleistocene (MIS 8) caused significant changes to the Trent catchment, including the integration of the modern Upper Trent with the rest of the system. Older sedimentary evidence is much more fragmentary, but is used along with the results of the uplift modelling to reconstruct the earlier drainage. It is thus inferred that between the Anglian (MIS 12) and Wragby (MIS 8) glaciations the Trent already flowed into the Fen Basin via the Lincoln Gap, but the smaller-than-present catchment, indicated by gravel lithology, resulted in a much steeper longitudinal gradient, such that during interglacials (MIS 11 and 9) an elongated estuary would have developed, extending inland almost to the present location of Newark. Prior to the Anglian, much of the modern Trent catchment, including the rivers Derwent and Dove, drained into the former Bytham River. The modern Middle Trent catchment downstream of Nottingham was drained by a relatively small 'Ancaster Trent' river, which flowed above the Ancaster Gap; analysis of gravel lithology suggests that it probably joined the Bytham in the area that now forms the Fen Basin.

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Section: Drainage Reconstruction Immediately Before the Wragby Glaciamentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of uplift modelling in the reconstruction of drainage development and landscape evolution in the repeatedly glaciated Trent catchment, English Midlands, UK

Westaway

Bridgland

White

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the Geologists' Association

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“…This would seem to confirm the existence of Swinnerton's (1937) 'Ancaster River', although it is less clear whether it represented the drainage of a Trent catchment comparable with that of the present-day or a more restricted 'Nottinghamshire Trent', as required by those reconstructions that envisage pre-Anglian drainage of the southern Pennines by way of the Bytham River (cf. Clayton, 2000;Rose et al, 2001;Belshaw et al, 2005). Second, the routing of the late Middle Pleistocene Trent by way of the Witham valley is strongly supported by data from the project, which suggest that this situation prevailed until deglaciation of the last British ice sheet and the drainage of the lake it impounded in the Humber system, at which time the Trent was effectively diverted into the Yorkshire Ouse.…”

Section: The Trentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The record from British Quaternary river systems within the context of global fluvial archives

Bridgland

2010

J Quaternary Science

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Data amassed in the past decade on Quaternary fluvial archives has allowed comparison across widely separated regions of the world. Meanwhile there has been a new impetus for research on British sequences, as a result particularly of the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF). In this context, the key British records (from the Thames, Severn-Avon, Trent, Wash system and Solent) are described briefly, with emphasis on the latest information. In the case of the Trent, sedimentary evidence, discovered during ALSF-funded work, appears to confirm the existence of a Middle Pleistocene 'Trent-Ancaster' River. In the case of the Solent, independent projects that sought to improve the age constraint for the sequence have produced complimentary results; the first used luminescence dating, whereas the second made use of Palaeolithic evidence to calibrate numerical incision/uplift modelling. The overarching message is that the British fluvial archive can be readily understood within a global context; it typifies records from areas with relatively young crust that has been uplifting during the Quaternary and, being in the temperate latitudes and close to the Atlantic margin, it reflects strong climatic forcing. The combination of rich faunal and Palaeolithic artefact contents means that certain British records are of international significance.

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“…Extensive terrace sequences exist for the Thames and Bytham river systems and are classified on the basis of elevation, sedimentology and clast lithologies (Whiteman and Rose, 1992;Lewis, 1993;Rose et al, 1999b;Lee, 2003). No terrace aggradations of the Ancaster River have yet been recognised but the presence of the river system has been inferred from the form of the bedrock surface (Clayton, 2000), and the presence of clast lithologies within shallow marine coastal sediments that are derived from the Ancaster catchment (Green and McGregor, 1990;Hamblin et al, 1996;Rose et al, 1996a). Floodplain and estuarine deposits of these river systems that crop out in coastal areas form the Cromer Forest-bed Formation, and have high palaeoecological and biostratigraphic significance (West, 1980;Preece and Parfitt, 2000;Preece, 2001;Stuart andLister, 2000, 2001).…”

Section: Location Of Study Site and Its Geological Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea‐level changes, river activity, soil development and glaciation around the western margins of the southern North Sea Basin during the Early and early Middle Pleistocene: evidence from Pakefield, Suffolk, UK

Lee

Rose

Candy

et al. 2006

J Quaternary Science

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This paper outlines evidence from Pakefield (northern Suffolk), eastern England, for sea‐level changes, river activity, soil development and glaciation during the late Early and early Middle Pleistocene (MIS 20–12) within the western margins of the southern North Sea Basin. During this time period, the area consisted of a low‐lying coastal plain and a shallow offshore shelf. The area was drained by major river systems including the Thames and Bytham. Changes in sea‐level caused several major transgressive–regressive cycles across this low‐relief region, and these changes are identified by the stratigraphic relationship between shallow marine (Wroxham Crag Formation), fluvial (Cromer Forest‐bed and Bytham formations) and glacial (Happisburgh and Lowestoft formations) sediments. Two separate glaciations are recognised—the Happisburgh (MIS 16) and Anglian (MIS 12) glaciations, and these are separated by a high sea level represented by a new member of the Wroxham Crag Formation, and several phases of river aggradation and incision. The principal driving mechanism behind sea‐level changes and river terrace development within the region during this time period is solar insolation operating over 100‐kyr eccentricity cycles. This effect is achieved by the impact of cold climate processes upon coastal, river and glacial systems and these climatically forced processes obscure the neotectonic drivers that operated over this period of time. © British Geological Survey/Natural Environment Research Council copyright 2005. Reproduced with the permission of BGS/NERC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Glacial erosion of the Wash and Fen basin and the deposition of the chalky till of eastern England

Cited by 32 publications

References 23 publications

The use of uplift modelling in the reconstruction of drainage development and landscape evolution in the repeatedly glaciated Trent catchment, English Midlands, UK

The use of uplift modelling in the reconstruction of drainage development and landscape evolution in the repeatedly glaciated Trent catchment, English Midlands, UK

The record from British Quaternary river systems within the context of global fluvial archives

Sea‐level changes, river activity, soil development and glaciation around the western margins of the southern North Sea Basin during the Early and early Middle Pleistocene: evidence from Pakefield, Suffolk, UK

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