Pleistocene till provenance in east Yorkshire: reconstructing ice flow of the British North Sea Lobe

Abstract

The ice flow path and dynamic behaviour of the British-Irish Ice Sheet has been subject to renewed interest and controversy in recent years. Early studies in eastern England argued for interaction with Fennoscandian ice onshore in Britain, instigating re-examination of the sedimentology and provenance of many Pleistocene till successions. These studies instead supported an exclusively British provenance, and are used to predict southward advance of a broadly coast parallel North Sea Lobe. Quantitative lithological and palynological analysis of the Pleistocene till succession in Holderness, East Yorkshire, however, remains to be carried out. We examined the lithologically diverse Skipsea Till in order to reconstruct ice flow pathways to the Holderness coast during the Pleistocene, thereby constraining which areas of substrate were subglacially eroded and entrained prior to deposition. The till yields a diverse range of soft, low-durability and uniquely British allochthonous material, including Permian Magnesian Limestone, Carboniferous limestone and coal, and Carboniferous pollen and spore assemblages that would be unlikely to survive polyphase reworking. Ice extended southwards through southern Scotland, incorporating material in north ease England, northern Yorkshire and the western margin of the North Sea Basin (NSB), supporting a recurrent ice flow

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

“…A broadly similar suite has also been identified in the Horden Till of the Durham coast and the Skipsea Till of eastern Yorkshire, which were deposited by the North Sea Ice Lobe of the last BIIS during the Dimlington Stadial (Davies et al, 2009(Davies et al, , 2012. It has been difficult to reconcile this recurring south-eastward trajectory from the Moray Firth with ice sheet reconstructions placing low ice divides stretching across the central North Sea Basin between Scotland and Norway (Davies et al, 2011, fig.11; Busfield et al, 2015, fig.7). It is compatible, however, with the early south-east phase of flow of our event stratigraphy, which may have transported material from NE Scotland into the path of later ice streams flowing out of the Firth of Forth.…”

Diamicton from the Vale of Pickering and Tabular Hills, north-east Yorkshire: evidence for a Middle Pleistocene (MIS 8) glaciation?

“…13b); the glacial advance extended southwards to the higher ground of the Howardian Hills Jurassic mudstone has been postulated for the LGM North Sea ice-lobe (Bateman et al, 2011;Busfield et al, 2015). Plateau ice-fields and glacier lobes of similar size and altitudinal difference above surrounding topographical lowlands are currently present in Iceland; these include the Mýrdalsjökull; Eyjafjallajökull; Hofsjökull, Porisjökull and Langjökull glaciers (Evans and Twigg, 2002;Evans, 2005).…”

“…In contrast to the erratic clasts of the oldest Basement Till of Holderness (regarded as Wolstonian, MIS 6-10 by Penny and Catt 1967;Catt 2007) (Wright, 1972;Powell, 2010). These clasts are mostly sub- constituents of North Sea derived tills (Lee et al, 2002;Riding et al, 2003;Davies et al, 2011Davies et al, , 2012Busfield et al, 2015), precludes derivation from Carboniferous rocks in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields, located to the north of the moors, but suggests a provenance from the Middle Jurassic coal-bearing lithofacies of the Ravenscar Group exposed in the Middle Jurassic inliers such as Farndale, Ryedale and Rosedale (Powell, 2010).…”

“…1915; Kendall, 1893Kendall, ,1902Gaunt, 1976Gaunt, , 1981Powell et al, 1992;Frost, 1998;Thomas, 1999;Evans et al 1995;Boston et al, 2010;Evans and Thompson, 2010;Roberts et al, 2013;Busfield et al, 2015;Bateman et al, 2015;Evans et al, 2016). In the late 19 th century the primary geological survey mapped till (or 'boulder clay' as it was then described) in the Vale of York and along the Yorkshire coast (Fox-Strangways et al, 1885, 1886FoxStrangways and Barrow, 1915).…”

Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association (PGA) Volume 126, Issue 1

“…Brew et al (2015), as a result of detailed work in the Fenland provide a new and illuminating model of coastal evolution and sea-level change in that part of eastern England. Finally, the subject of glacial and periglacial geology is examined in papers by Phillips and Hughes (2014) who look at hydrofracturing as a result of overpressurised subglacial meltwater during glaciation of Anglesey; Miller et al (2014) who use LiDAR imagery to determine the glacial and paraglacial history of part of the southeast Lake District, England; Busfield et al (2015) who use the lithology and derived palynology to determine the ice flow paths of the last glaciers to cross east Yorkshire and Paul (2014) provides a critical examination of the factors that have determined the fluvial geomorphology of part of the Cotswold escarpment and in so doing provides insight into the processes that formed this landscape and the patterns of settlement and water-powered industry in the area Over the past five years or so, the PGA has hosted a number of important papers on the topic of geoconservation, Earth heritage and Earth management, and papers in this field have been well used with high citation values. Over the period covered by this Editorial the journal has received papers from a variety of locations around the world with Rocha et al (2014) who assess the geological heritage of Cape Mondego Natural Monument, Central Portugal, which is the GSSP for the base of the Bajocian Stage and the ASSP for the base of the Bathonian Stage; Enniouar et al (2014) who describe and evaluate a Middle Jurassic sauropod tracksite in the Western High Atlas, Morocco in terms of sustainable geotourism, and Veress et al (2014) who present an analysis of the tor-like features that define the Lena Pillars Nature Park in the Republic of Sakha, East Siberia, Russia.…”