https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/britain-would-still-be-attached-to-europe-had-this-ridge-remained-intact
This is an interesting article -- I have not yet managed to read the original in "Nature Communications". The idea of the Ice Age megaflood draining a pro-glacial lake in the southern North Sea is an old one, and Gupta and his colleagues have been reporting on the essentials of this work for more than 10 years now. What is new is the linking of the megaflood event with the gigantic depressions (up to 100m deep) close to the position of the old chalk ridge that ran across from one side to the other. They are now interpreted as plunge pools created by enormous volumes of meltwater cascading over the low points in the ridge.
On the illustration above, note the herd of rhinos..... nice touch!
It looks as if the original breach of this chalk ridge is now assumed to have occurred at the end of the Anglian Glaciation, around 500,000 years ago. We have talked rather a lot about that particular glaciation on this blog.......
It's always good to see some serious glacial geomorphology given some publicity by the BBC and other media -- but calling the "megaflood event" an Ice Age Brexit really is taking things a bit far. Has the whole world gone bonkers? Well, yes........
But a pale shade of the collapse of the Messinian Salinity Crisis!
ReplyDeleteEven that is less spectacular now and the Zanclean Flood more a boating experience (sturdy boat) rather than white water rafting.
More realistic but less photogenic.
M
...and the Biblical Flood was even better, as Noah would no doubt have attested.......
ReplyDelete