Middle to Late Devensian glaciation of north‐east Scotland: implications for the north‐eastern quadrant of the last British–Irish ice sheet

Merritt, J.W.; Connell, E. Rodger; Hall, Adrian M.

doi:10.1002/jqs.2878

Cited by 20 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 155 publications

(345 reference statements)

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“…This is also a period when ice feeding through the Firth of Forth would have experienced significant changes in ice flux, with shifting ice divides over central Scotland. Such changes were a response first to decoupling of the FIS and BIIS (Sejrup et al, 2015;Merritt et al, 2017), followed by air temperature and insolation driven thinning (Alley and Clark, 1999;Bintanja et al, 2005), as well as possible mass balance and dynamic feedbacks relating to westerly sectors of the BIIS responding to the Heinrich 1 cooling (McCabe et al, 1998).…”

Section: Discussion: the Timing And Forcing Of Regional Deglaciationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The mixed‐bed glacial landform imprint of the North Sea Lobe in the western North Sea

Roberts

Grimoldi

Callard

et al. 2019

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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During the last glacial cycle an intriguing feature of the British‐Irish Ice Sheet was the North Sea Lobe (NSL); fed from the Firth of Forth and which flowed south and parallel to the English east coast. The controls on the formation and behaviour of the NSL have long been debated, but in the southern North Sea recent work suggests the NSL formed a dynamic, oscillating terrestrial margin operating over a deforming bed. Further north, however, little is known of the behaviour of the NSL or under what conditions it operated. This paper analyses new acoustic, sedimentary and geomorphic data in order to evaluate the glacial landsystem imprint and deglacial history of the NSL offshore from NE England. Subglacial tills (AF2/3) form a discontinuous mosaic interspersed with bedrock outcrops across the seafloor, with the partial excavation and advection of subglacial sediment during both advance and retreat producing mega‐scale glacial lineations and grounding zone wedges. The resultant ‘mixed‐bed’ glacial landsystem is the product of a dynamic switch from a terrestrial piedmont‐lobe margin with a net surplus of sediment to a partially erosive, quasi‐stable, marine‐terminating, ice stream lobe as the NSL withdrew northwards. Glaciomarine sediments (AF4) drape the underlying subglacial mixed‐bed imprint and point to a switch to tidewater conditions between 19.9 and 16.5 ka cal BP as the North Sea became inundated. The dominant controls on NSL recession during this period were changing ice flux through the Firth of Forth ice stream onset zone and water depths at the grounding line; the development of the mixed‐bed landsystem being a response to grounding line instability. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Discussion: the Timing And Forcing Of Regional Deglaciationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The mixed‐bed glacial landform imprint of the North Sea Lobe in the western North Sea

Roberts

Grimoldi

Callard

et al. 2019

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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“…The longevity of preglacial drainage systems and preservation of pre-Quaternary weathering profiles are well documented in the Scottish Highlands (Hall 1991;Hall & Bishop 2002;Hall & Gillespie 2017;Merritt et al 2017). Less is known in the Midland Valley of Scotland.…”

Section: Ice-flow Alignment and Timingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the geometry, age and genesis of buried Quaternary valley systems in the Midland Valley of Scotland, UK

Kearsey

Lee

Finlayson

et al. 2018

Boreas

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Buried palaeo‐valley systems have been identified widely beneath lowland parts of the UK including eastern England, central England, south Wales and the North Sea. In the Midland Valley of Scotland palaeo‐valleys have been identified yet the age and genesis of these enigmatic features remain poorly understood. This study utilizes a digital data set of over 100 000 boreholes that penetrate the full thickness of deposits in the Midland Valley of Scotland. It identified 18 buried palaeo‐valleys, which range from 4 to 36 km in length and 24 to 162 m in depth. Geometric analysis has revealed four distinct valley morphologies, which were formed by different subglacial and subaerial processes. Some palaeo‐valleys cross‐cut each other with the deepest features aligning east–west. These east–west features align with the reconstructed ice‐flow direction under maximum conditions of the Main Late Devensian glaciation. The shallower features appear more aligned to ice‐flow direction during ice‐sheet retreat, and were therefore probably incised under more restricted ice‐sheet configurations. The bedrock lithology influences and enhances the position and depth of palaeo‐valleys in this lowland glacial terrain. Faults have juxtaposed Palaeozoic sedimentary and igneous rocks and the deepest palaeo‐valleys occur immediately down‐ice of knick‐points in the more resistant igneous bedrock. The features are regularly reused and the fills are dominated by glacial fluvial and glacial marine deposits. This suggests that the majority of infilling of the features happened during deglaciation and may be unrelated to the processes that cut them.

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“…The relationships between the ice occupying the North Sea basin and the onshore Quaternary record in the UK have been investigated in the papers by Lee et al (2017), White et al (2017), Merritt et al (2017) and Evans et al (2017) (7, 12, 4 and 8 on Fig. 1).…”

Section: Contents Of the Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…White et al end with a call to better distinguish between Anglian and post-Anglian glacial deposits in areas beyond the Devensian ice limits to further refine palaeogeographical limits of Middle Pleistocene ice limits. Merritt et al (2017) present a comprehensive review of over 175 years of research into the Middle to Late Weichselian (Devensian) glaciation of north-east Scotland. This onshore region, and surrounding seabed, provide detailed geomorphological and sedimentary records which can be used to decipher the interactions between and dynamics of the former BIIS and FIS within the North Sea basin.…”

Section: Contents Of the Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Merritt et al () present a comprehensive review of over 175 years of research into the Middle to Late Weichselian (Devensian) glaciation of north‐east Scotland. This onshore region, and surrounding seabed, provide detailed geomorphological and sedimentary records which can be used to decipher the interactions between and dynamics of the former BIIS and FIS within the North Sea basin.…”

Section: Introduction − the Quaternary Of The North Sea Basin And Itsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Quaternary geology of the North Sea basin

Phillips

Hodgson

Emery

2017

J Quaternary Science

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Middle to Late Devensian glaciation of north‐east Scotland: implications for the north‐eastern quadrant of the last British–Irish ice sheet

Cited by 20 publications

References 155 publications

The mixed‐bed glacial landform imprint of the North Sea Lobe in the western North Sea

The mixed‐bed glacial landform imprint of the North Sea Lobe in the western North Sea

Examining the geometry, age and genesis of buried Quaternary valley systems in the Midland Valley of Scotland, UK

The Quaternary geology of the North Sea basin

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