The Pleistocene College Farm Silty Clay at Great Blakenham, Suffolk, England – additional information on the course of the early River Thames

This paper considers the processes that have controlled cool temperate latitude terrestrial environments over the last ca 3 Ma, with particular reference to the British Isles. A scheme is proposed that is based on the processes that act on the land over any given period of time and are the product of climate modulated by rock type (the resisting agent) and relief (determined by tectonics and antecedent relief-forming factors). Climate is generalised in terms of the range and rates of climate change determined by orbital forcing. During precession cycles climate change was small and insolation levels were forced by chemically and biologically driven processes. The period of obliquity cycles is characterised by patterns of climate change in which physical processes became effective and high-magnitude fluvial and slope processes were reinforced by periglaciation and glaciation in susceptible regions. Eccentricity cycles include climate extremes of longer duration, and glaciation and periglaciation were the major contributors to landscape change, sediment transfer and sediment mixing. These climate-forced processes produce distinctive landform, sediment and soil assemblages characteristic of particular episodes of Quaternary time. The lags between the successive systems are identified.

The Quaternary of the British Isles: factors forcing environmental change

Rose

2010

Palaeogeographical changes in response to glacial–interglacial cycles, as recorded in Middle and Late Pleistocene seismic stratigraphy, southern North Sea

Eaton

Hodgson

Barlow

et al. 2020

Offshore stratigraphic records from the North Sea contain information to reconstruct palaeo‐ice‐sheet extent and understand sedimentary processes and landscape response to Pleistocene glacial–interglacial cycles. We document three major Middle to Late Pleistocene stratigraphic packages over a 401‐km2 area (Norfolk Vanguard/Boreas Offshore Wind Farm), offshore East Anglia, UK, through the integration of 2D seismic, borehole and cone penetration test data. The lowermost unit is predominantly fluviatile [Yarmouth Roads Formation, Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 19–13], including three northward‐draining valleys. The middle unit (Swarte Bank Formation) records the southernmost extent of tunnel valley‐fills in this area of the North Sea, providing evidence for subglacial conditions most likely during the Anglian stage (MIS 12) glaciation. The Yarmouth Roads and Swarte Bank deposits are truncated and overlain by low‐energy estuarine silts and clays (Brown Bank Formation; MIS 5d–4). Smaller scale features, including dune‐scale bedforms, and abrupt changes in cone penetration test parameters, provide evidence for episodic changes in relative sea level within MIS 5. The landscape evolution recorded in deposits of ~MIS 19–5 are strongly related to glacial–interglacial cycles, although a distinctive aspect of this low‐relief ice‐marginal setting are opposing sediment transport directions under contrasting sedimentary process regimes.

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

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.