The myth of ice-rafted coastal erratics

Features seen on Höga Kusten, Sweden, around and beneath the 260m marine limit.  Kalottberg hills are "capped" with moraine and glacial and fluvioglacial deposits, providing excellent conditions for forest cover to survive.  Beneath the highest strandline surfaces are washed -- which means that most of the fines have been washed out during isostatic uplift.

Beneath the highest shoreline in the Höga Kusten district, the finer materials in the morainic cover are washed out, leaving massive accumulations of boulders and smaller stones. The term "Klapperfält" is used to describe them.. Most of the boulders are local, but scattered among them are far-travelled erratics, coloured orange in this diagram.  In areas such as this, stillstands or pauses in the rate of uplift may result in the formation of storm-beach ridges.

Erratics of many different lithologies on washed rock surfaces in the Stockholm Archipelago.

Washed surfaces, kalottberg and klapperfält features can be found anywhere within the dark coloured area on this map.

It's intriguing that ice-rafted erratic boulders are still being talked about in the context of the large erratics found on the shorelines of southern Britain.  Ice rafting seems to be the "process of preference" among those who -- for whatever reason -- do not wish to accept that full glacial processes have substantially affected the Bristol Channel coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset.  

About a year ago I posted these items on the blog: 

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2023/12/coastal-geomorphology-in-devensian.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-big-erratic-boulders-of-devon-and.html

........... and I have discussed the matter in many other posts as well.  Use the search box to find them.

The latest spat is with James Scourse, who argued in a very strange paper that the big coastal erratics were emplaced by floating ice at a time of high relative sea level (RSL) and cold climate.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/03/new-scourse-paper-on-giant-erratics-is.html

That of course flies in the face of our understanding of eustatic / isostatic relationships during the Devensian and earlier glacial episodes.  In the latest rather crude attack on me by Pearce, Ixer, Bevins and Scourse they argue again that the big coastal erratics (like the Limeslade erratic) on the Bristol Channel coasts are "ice rafted"  -- and that there was "asynchrony between Early and Middle Devensian regional ice sheet development and global sea level".   I don't have a clue what that means, and no evidence in support of the contention is provided.  I see no sign at all of Early and Middle Devensian glacial activity in the Quaternary stratigraphy of West Wales, and I see no evidence of substantial isostatic depression at the time, or tectonic tilting.  Bennett et al, in the new paper on the Quaternary in Devon, say with respect to the coastal erratics: "...........another view is that the coastal platform erratics were delivered by icebergs calved from glacier ice farther north, an interpretation that is consistent with the widespread distribution of erratics on shore platforms on the Bristol Channel and English Channel coasts."

Even if there was a substantial ice mass in Wales during the Early and Mid Devensian, global sea level at that time was around -70m, and I can see no mechanism for a sinking of the Devon and Cornwall coast by an equivalent amount, thereby creating conditions for ice rafted debris to be dumped on the coastal rock platform.  On the contrary, when one looks at known isostatic adjustment mechanisms, there would have been a hinge line along the Bristol Channel and a rise in the relative altitude of the South-West Peninsula, making giant erratic emplacement from floating ice even less likely.

Icebergs do not, in general, deliver erratics to distant coastal platforms. Dirty icebergs moving away from floating ice fronts almost always operate in deep water, dropping their debris load as a consequence of bottom melting -- ending up as glacio-marine sediments with added dropstones. There are vast thicknesses of these materials in the Celtic Sea and in the outer Bristol Channel. (They have received impressive attention during the BRITICE studies.)  Icebergs do get stranded in embayments in the intertidal zone, and they do break up into bergy bits and release big boulders onto mud flats.  But most of the ice with "rafting" characteristics is sea ice which develops as flat sheets and then gets broken up by lateral pressure, and broken ice floes are almost always clean.  Where there is an ice foot on a polar coastline,  it is almost always a mixture of sea ice, frozen spray and detached chunks of winter snowbanks.  It sometimes contains erratic boulders, but these are generally taken from pre-existing coastal materials including beach accumulations, till and scree.  They are seldom carried in from the sea; they are more likely to be carried OUT from the coastline to be dropped in deeper water offshore. 

As I see it, the big erratic boulders scattered along the coasts of the Bristol Channel are NOT all concentrated in the current intertidal zone.  They occur at altitudes up to at least 80m.  They have to be residuals or remnants of ancient glacial deposits scattered along the Bristol Channel coasts.  As I have said before, the "concentration" of these erratics on the intertidal rock platform is more apparent than real, since these are washed surfaces similar to those associated with "kalottberg" hills around the marine limit in Sweden.  Nobody ever suggests that the boulders found at the marine limit are unique in any way;  they almost always also occur above and below the limit.  So the position of the marine limit -- like RSL on the coast of the Bristol Channel -- is interesting but not geomorphologically significant.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/07/kalottberg-features-in-northern-sweden.html

It seems to me highly likely that the erratic boulders on the Bristol Channel coasts are simply the remnants of ancient glacial deposits that have been almost entirely removed on the coast by marine, periglacial and other processes, possibly over several glacial / interglacial cycles. Further inland, away from the coast, there may well be in situ glacial deposits (with giant erratics!) still awaiting discovery.

 The boulders themselves may date from a number of different glacial phases, including the Anglian, Late Wolstonian and Late Devensian, in which Irish Sea ice from the N and NW crossed the coastline and pressed inland via convenient depressions and wide valleys.   Just a few of the boulders (such as the famous pink erratic at Saunton) can be tied into the stratigraphic sequence,  sealed by sandrock or slope breccia.  At Whitesands in North Pembrokeshire  the boulder bed (which I think is related to some of the erratics on coastal rock platforms) appears to consist of boulders emplaced prior to the last interglacial and then modified by wave action.  It is not visibly associated with the Ipswichian raised beach. 

Some of the boulders of the Whitesands boulder bed, held in cemented slope breccia at the base of the Devensian sediment sequence.  The boulders were probably emplaced during an early glaciation and rounded by wave action during the Ipswichian interglacial.  This narrative probably applies to many of the Bristol Channel "giant erratics"........

Looking again at the ice-rafting hypothesis, I cannot see any tectonic or other evidence which suggests that floating ice was involved in the emplacement of any of the big erratics on the Bristol Channel coast.  On those occasions when there were dirty icebergs in the Celtic Sea, sea level was probably at least 100m lower than today, and the coastline was at least 10 km further to the west than it is now.  

More support for a big Wolstonian glaciation

 

I have been looking again at the big article by Bennett et al (2024) on the Quaternary in Devon.  As indicated on the table above, they believe that the one glacial episode that substantially affected the North Devon coast occurred during the Late Wolstonian (MIS 6).  They consider that the glaciation of the Bristol Channel during the Late Devensian (MIS 2) was less extensive, although they accept that the evidence for that time demonstrates a local ice cap on Dartmoor. (There must, of course, also have been a Dartmoor ice cap in the Late Wolstonian, but the evidence for it is not easy to find.........)

As for the Anglian (MIS 12), the authors are cautious.  They suggest that the evidence for a big glaciation at that time is not clear in and around Devon, and therefore they prefer to stick with a "periglacial" climate label for that period. 

Commendable work, with great relevance for other parts of SW Britain. 

Quote:

The most recent research on glaciation in the Bristol
Channel was published by Gibbard et al. (2017, 2022). This
included a synthesis of new publicly available borehole and
bathymetric data, combined with a wealth of other existing
disparate data sources. Sediment boreholes throughout
the Bristol Channel confirm the area was glaciated in the
Pleistocene. Till is present below marine deposits and, in some
areas, is visible morphologically as submerged moraines (Fig.
9). In the central and eastern Bristol Channel the submerged
valley course of the palaeo-Severn is very clear in new highresolution
bathymetric surveys. This former river course and
associated tributaries cross-cut through glacial sediments in
the Bristol Channel. At least three phases of glaciation are
recorded in the Bristol Channel, one related to the southern
limits of a Late Devensian Substage (~MIS 2) Welsh Ice Cap
which reached into Swansea Bay, an earlier Devensian (MIS
4 to 3) glaciation associated with Irish Sea ice, and another
older glaciation that is associated with ice that filled the entire
outer and central Bristol Channel (Fig. 1). The age of the older
Bristol Channel glaciation is still open, although it predates
the Devensian (Late Pleistocene) and must date to the Middle
Pleistocene, and as noted above is likely to correlate with MIS
6 (i.e., the Late Wolstonian). This has implications for the age
of the glacial deposits present on land in the Barnstaple area,
which have traditionally been correlated with the Anglian Stage
(MIS 12) (e.g., Croot et al. 1996). It is more likely, however,
that these deposits correlate with the oldest glaciation of the
Bristol Channel immediately to the north, i.e., with MIS 6 and
the Late Wolstonian Substage (potentially the Moreton Stadial
of Gibson et al., 2022).

I am unconvinced about the Early Devensian  (MIS 4-3) glaciation associated with Irish Sea ice, since the evidence is just not there -- and  I suspect this idea will be dumped before too long.......

The Quaternary Geology of Devon

Glacial deposits and erratics in the Fremington area.  Note that the till cover extends over the 60m contour.  It is therefore not surprising that "high level erratics" are found at even greater altitudes elsewhere on the Devon coasts.

Been waiting for this for some time.  A very comprehensive and interesting summary.  I'm intrigued by the  suggestion that glacier ice "approached" the North Devon coast on at least three occasions from the Bristol Channel, and probably crossed it more than once.  The authors are in no doubt about the presence of glacial deposits in the Fremington area.  I would have liked a more careful consideration of the ice rafting hypothesis in the section where they talk about erratic boulders.  They say that the rivers that cut the deep river valleys were graded to low, cold period sea levels, but if that was the case you cannot have high sea levels with ice rafting of erratics when conditions were of "full glacial" status.  You can't have your cake and eat it.

Anyway, I'll give this useful article greater consideraton on another occasion.

===========

Bennett, J.A., Cullingford, R.A., Gibbard, P.L., Hughes, P.D. and Murton, J.B. 2024. The Quaternary Geology of Devon. Proceedings of the Ussher Society, 15, 84-130.

https://ussher.org.uk/journal/catalogue/volume-15-part-3-2024

Abstract

Throughout the 2.6 My of the Quaternary, Devon has occupied a critical position with respect to the evolution of Britain in that it lies close to the North Atlantic Ocean between the southern coast of the Bristol Channel and the northern coast of the English Channel. This setting results in the area being highly sensitive to climatic and environmental change. Although the county lies beyond the general limit of the major glaciations of the last 0.5 My, it was impacted by glacial ice and its associated meltwater that approached the north coast on at least three occasions. Glaciers also left deposits on the Bristol Channel floor and potentially locally on Dartmoor and possibly Exmoor. Ice-rafting of erratic rocks also occurred. Nevertheless, the whole region has been repeatedly subjected to severe cold-climate, periglacial conditions for much of Quaternary time. Under cold periods frost- dominated climates have driven the formation of a thick carapaces of slope-derived debris (head deposits), with wind erosion shaping the tors characteristic of the high moorlands. At the same time deep river valleys have been carved by continual severe seasonal snow meltwater, the streams transporting weathered rock derived from the steep slopes. The rivers that cut these valleys were graded to low, cold period sea levels, and their valleys frequently include multiple terrace accumulations, the highest of which date from the Middle Pleistocene. Apart from the Late-glacial open vegetation and Holocene blanket peatland, evidence of earlier warm-climate conditions also occur, but are limited in comparison to the cold-climate accumulations. Past and present interglacial (temperate) deposits are also known from the county. They include not only river deposits, but also cave infillings and high sea-level, fossil beaches, often including fossil evidence. Coastal erosional landforms such as wave-cut platforms and cliff formations are commonly found, and submerged offshore examples are also known, particularly from the English Channel coast. Despite all this evidence, its fragmentary nature means that the record of events in the region is both limited and intriguing. The advent of numerical age determination and other modern analytical methods have improved knowledge of the timing of some events and provenance of materials in the region, but much more work is required to fill in the substantial gaps in current knowledge.

Pearce et al: Much ado about nothing much

The map published by Scourse et al, 2021. The labels used for the glaciers are no more "correct" than the labels that might be used by others on their own maps.  The ice edge positions shown are also matters of opinion, as are the directions of ice flow........ and I happen to disagree with several of the key features on this map.

With regard to that petty and mean-spirited ad hominem attack the other day from Pearce, Ixer, Bevins and Scourse, one of the things that most intrigued me was the obsession with silly little details.  

One comment (with the use of "sic") related to my use of the term "Irish Sea Glacier" somewhere in the text, whereas I should apparently have used the term "Irish Sea Ice Stream" as defined by Scourse and many other colleagues in 2021.  Big deal.  Well yes, that is the term used for many years now to describe the ice mass flowing in the Celtic Sea arena and into the Bristol Channel.  For many years I have used the term "ice stream" myself, in this blog and in publications.  But the term "Irish Sea Glacier" is and has been used widely across the literature for many years, and is widely understood as the ice mass that extended all the way out to the Celtic Sea shelf edge.  An ice stream is simply a big glacier, flowing fast and flanked by ice that is stagnant or flowing much more slowly.  A glacier might be described as an ice stream channelled in a trough or bounded by topographic highlands.  Pearce et al apparently want the rest of us to restrict the term "Irish Sea Glacier" to the ice that flowed into the Cheshire Basin, flanked by the uplands of North Wales and the southern Pennines.  But it was no more constrained by topography than the "Irish Sea Ice Stream"  that flowed through St Georges Channel -- and I think that the term "ice lobe" better describes the characteristics of the ice that flowed into Cheshire and the north Midlands.  

It may also be argued that the use of the term "Irish Sea Ice Stream" for the ice occupying the Celtic Sea is inadequate, since the feature (possibly during several glaciations) had many of the characteristics of a piedmont glacier, as I pointed out in one of my earliest glaciology articles, in 1968:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2011/02/glaciological-dilemma.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2016/07/ice-in-celtic-sea-piedmont-glacier-or.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319922666_Short_Notes_Directions_of_Ice_Movement_in_the_Southern_Irish_Sea_Basin_During_the_Last_Major_Glaciation_An_Hypothesis

Thus there is no "correct" terminology in any of this.  It is disingenuous of Pearce et al to pretend that there is, and that others are "in error" if they use terms that do not conform to somebody else's labelling system.

Reference:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2021/05/new-dating-for-lgm-irish-sea-ice-stream.html

Maximum extent and readvance dynamics of the Irish Sea Ice Stream and Irish Sea Glacier since the Last Glacial Maximum
J. D. Scourse, R. C. Chiverrell, R. K. Smedley, D. Small, M. J. Burke, M. Saher, K. J. J. Van Landeghem, G. A. T. Duller, C. Ó Cofaigh, M. D. Bateman, S. Benetti, S. Bradley, L. Callard, D. J. A. Evans, D. Fabel, G. T. H. Jenkins, S. McCarron, A. Medialdea, S. Moreton, X. Ou, D. Praeg, D. H. Roberts, H. M. Roberts, C. D. Clark
Jnl of Quaternary Science, 7 May 2021 (special issue article)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.3313?af=R

https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3313

This all reminds me of a spat I had with James Scourse five years ago, following the publication of my QN article on the glaciation of the Isles of Scilly.  Scourse attacked me, using very intemperate language, partly because I had the temerity to disagree with a part of his sedimentary stratigraphic labelling system.  In his eyes, I dare say, his labels were 100% reliable, and not open to negotiation by anyone.  Anyway, after some insulting bluster and questioning of my competence, he had to grudgingly agree that the Devensian ice limit as drawn by me did actually have some merit..........

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/03/scourse-versus-john-rather-scilly-spat.html

Then there is the matter of the Anglian Glaciation, about which I have written at length on this blog.  In their QN piece, Pearce et al have a silly dig at my "contention" that the ice advance responsible for bluestone transport was during the Anglian Glaciation, and claim that there is no geochronological or other evidence to support this.  It's true that when I wrote my article I did mention the Anglian episode (MIS 12), but in doing that I was representing an almost unanimous view across the research community that this was the most extensive pre-Devensian glaciation across much of the British Isles.  

LEE, J R, ROSE, J, HAMBLIN, R J, MOORLOCK, B S, RIDING, J B, PHILLIPS, E, BARENDREGT, R W, AND CANDY, I. 2011. The Glacial History of the British Isles during the Early and Middle Pleistocene: Implications for the long-term development of the British Ice Sheet. 59-74 in Quaternary Glaciations–Extent and Chronology, A Closer look. Developments in Quaternary Science. EHLERS, J, GIBBARD, P L, AND HUGHES, P D (editors). 15. (Amsterdam: Elsevier.)

I am quite unconcerned about whether the Anglian was or was not the largest British glaciation, and if Pearce et al had bothered to look at my published output they would have seen that I have discussed at length the possibility of a very large Wolstonian glaciation -- and that I am rather convinced by the latest suggestions of Phil Gibbard and others that it was more important than the Anglian for landscape transformation (and sediment transport) in the Celtic Sea arena. 

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/08/towards-late-wolstonian-mis-6-ice-limit.html  

More to follow.......

The Berry House boulder, north of Shebbear

 

From Google streetview -- this is a hefty boulder, on the roadside verge at the entrance to Berry House

More on the Shebbear erratic boulder

Found in the NDAS Newsletter, Autumn 2017
http://www.ndas.org.uk/NDAS%20Newsletter%20Autumn%202017.pdf


This is very interesting. More on Shebbear........... John Bradbeer is quite certain that the Shebbear and Berry House stones are both sarsens, related to those on Salisbury Plain and other parts of southern England. He suggests that the two stones have come from destroyed Tertiary deposits, and have been "let down" onto the present land surface.  Until further evidence is forthcoming, this sounds like a reasonable explanation.  More research please, from those who live over that way......

The Devil’s Stone at Shebbear: A Landscape Enigma

John Bradbeer

Members will probably be aware of the Devil’s Stone, which lies at the west end of the square, just outside the churchyard in Shebbear. It represents an enigma taking in archaeology, geology and geomorphology (the study of landforms). The stone itself is at the centre of much folklore, culminating in a ceremony every 5th November, when the stone is turned. This is to flush the Devil out from his
possible hiding place under the stone and failure to do so puts next year’s crops in jeopardy. Another element to the story is that the Devil was escaping from Northlew, where he was in danger of catching his death of cold and to hasten his progress, he dropped the stone in Shebbear. We can probably explain the November timing of the turning of the stone with reference to the Celtic year in which the
first of November, Samhain (pronounced sawin) marks the start of winter. The shift to 5th November almost certainly came about after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The stone itself is around 500 to 700 kilograms in weight and sub-angular rather than round in shape. It is described geologically as a conglomerate orthoquartzite, and to the untrained eye, the shiny quartz grains resemble the quartz crystals in granite. It is in fact a sedimentary rock and current thinking suggests that it is Tertiary in age and thus comparable with the sarsen stones (or ‘grey wethers’) that are found on Salisbury Plain and which, of course, were famously used at Avebury and Stonehenge. It is generally accepted that sea levels were very much higher in the Tertiary period, roughly 5 to 50 million years ago, and many of the succession of erosion surfaces (from c 50 to c 350 metres OD) that give such flat skylines across much of the county were cut at this time. Most of the presumed Tertiary cover of South West England has long since been eroded away, but Tertiary deposits are preserved on the top of Haldon Hill, south west of Exeter and in the down-faulted Bovey Basin in South Devon and here in North Devon in the Petrockstow Basin and the off- shore Stanley Basin near Lundy. Orleigh in Buckland Brewer has a flint gravel deposit presumed to be of Tertiary age and derived from a former cover of chalk. The Tithe Apportionment of 1841 records some fields as ‘Flint Hill’. So geologists can offer a plausible origin for the Devil’s Stone, but what happened to the other survivors from this former Tertiary cover remains an enigma.

In central southern England, besides the sarsens used at sites like Avebury and Stonehenge and incorporated in some of the barrows, there are clusters such as those found in a dry valley on
Fyfield Down, just north of Pewsey in Wiltshire. Geomorphologists can explain such a cluster by reference to solifluction flow during the very cold periods in the Quaternary when southern England was effectively tundra, lying just to the south of the great ice sheets and the summer thaw delivered sufficient water to move soil and sarsens stones down slope. The river terrace gravels along the Solent also contain many smaller fragments of sarsen stone, brought down by the rivers that drain much of Salisbury Plain. But where are the other sarsen stones from North Devon? On Salisbury Plain it is plausible to speculate that early humans found and moved many of the suitably large stones to incorporate in monuments, but in North Devon, there are no megaliths formed of sarsens. North
Devon’s river gravel terraces, of which there may be at least four or five, have never been exploited so no sarsens have been exposed from these. Perhaps there never were as many sarsens here and most were quite small and thus readily transported or fragmented into yet smaller pieces.

The Devil’s stone at Shebbear 

However, the enigma has another twist. For about 750 metres from the Devil’s Stone is another sarsen, rather larger at an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 kilograms, now on the verge in front of Berry House and one that looks far more like potential megalith material in shape. That two such stones should survive so close to each other yet no others appear to have survived anywhere in North Devon requires explanation. Clearly human agency has to be invoked in the survival and folklore attached, especially to the Devil’s Stone, but archaeology and geology have no real explanation as to why there should be just these two sarsens and no others known in North Devon.  (Note from BJ:  could these stones have been carried from a source area near the coast, by an ice tongue pressing inland from the Fremington - Barnstaple area?)

The Berry House erratic, more than twice the size of the Shebbear stone, and weighing in 

at almost 2 tonnes.........

A very silly rant from the pet rock boys

 

Well, this is rather entertaining -- and more than a little pathetic.  Pearce, Bevins, Ixer and Scourse have put together a furious synthetic rant designed to question my competence and destroy my credibility.  It's just been published in Quaternary Newsletter:

Pearce, N., Bevins, R., Ixer, R. and Scourse, J.  2024.  Comment on "An igneous erratic at Limeslade, Gower, and the Glaciation of the Bristol Channel" by Brian John.  Quaternary Newsletter 163, pp 15 - 20.

Also very entertaining is Tim Daw's instant report on his blog.  Ah, the faithful retainer can always be relied on to help his muckers when they are in a spot of bother.  His report, with carefully selected quotes, is flagged up as "the professional response" to my Limeslade article !!  It's quite touching to see such blind loyalty from an amateur.

Maybe you shouldn't be too surprised.  I'm not surprised at all.........

As readers of this blog will know, my short article published earlier this year presented some preliminary information on the Limeslade boulder, including pXRF data kindly provided by the late Prof Tim Darvill, and assessed its importance in the debate about the glaciation of the Bristol Channel.  In the article I recognised the shortcomings of just three readings from one sample from the boulder, and looked forward to seeing more intensive and detailed analyses of other samples from the boulder by other researchers.  I said: "There is inadequate data for the creation of scatter diagrams or bivariate graphs involving the Limeslade boulder ppm readings. So it is not possible at present to say that the pXRF readings occupy a different visualised “compositional space” for trace elements than the readings for the Preseli tors."

Not everybody has access to research funds and top class laboratory facilities, and when Prof Tim Darvill and Dr Steve Parry offered to help in obtaining pXRF readings, I was grateful for their involvement. 

Instead of accepting this preliminary work with good grace as a starting point for future research, Pearce et al  have subjected it to detailed -- and it has to be said, obsessively aggressive and petulant -- scrutiny, while in the process questioning the competence of other geologists whose notes I reproduced word for word.  I am at a loss as to why these four academics have allowed themselves to be sucked into this absurd spat.  They cannot possibly come out of it with any credit.

In the second part of their article Pearce et al accuse me of  "a polemic against the advocates of human transport (e.g. Parker Pearson et al., 2021)".  I strongly refute that.  My assessment of the human transport thesis (on pp 10 and 11) is carefully phrased, and constitutes a straightforward review of the narrative developed over the last decade by Parker Pearson, Ixer, Bevins and others.  Indeed, my comments are supported by the dramatic retreats made by these authors from the spectacular claims they were making just a few years ago.  These retreats (for example on Waun Mawn) are well known to all who read the literature.

The latter part of the Pearce et al article relates to the glaciation / sea ice transport issue, and I take issue with almost everything that they say.  I will revisit that in a later post.  I will not accept snide comments from people who have apparently never done any field work in West Wales relating to the Quaternary stratigraphic sequence.  Nor will I accept a "holier than thou" attitude from geologists who have, over the last decade, refused to cite "inconvenient literature" or to accept that any of their ideas are questioned or disputed by anybody else.

As for their parting shot:  "This article merely represents a disingenuous cover to justify a rehearsal
of the now well-worn and increasingly tedious debate concerning transport of the Stonehenge bluestones."  That really is beneath contempt.  The article I published was fashioned in part by the constructive comments of the journal editor and referees. The "tedious debate" to which Pearce et al  refer has been fuelled and perpetrated by an endless stream of journal and popular science magazine articles which they themselves have written, many of them recycling the same basic data, designed to promote the strange fantasy that the Preseli bluestones at Stonehenge were targetted, quarried and transported by our Neolithic ancestors.

Watch this space........

Details:

Brian John, 2024. An Igneous Erratic at Limeslade, Gower & the Glaciation of the Bristol Channel. Quaternary Newsletter 162, June 2024. pp 4 - 14.

The article is freely accessible, and can be downloaded here:

https://www.qra.org.uk/quaternary-newsletter/quaternary-newsletter-current/

It is also on Researchgate, and can be accessed here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381775577_Quaternary_Newsletter_Article_AN_IGNEOUS_ERRATIC_AT_LIMESLADE_GOWER_AND_THE_GLACIATION_OF_THE_BRISTOL_CHANNEL

The Shebbear erratic

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2003881253140331/posts/turning-of-the-devils-stone-shebbear-2024/2559590600902724/

Thanks to Tony for drawing attention to this.  The famous Shebbear erratic lies at an altitude of c 146m and is c 15 km from the Devon coast.  It is likely to have been carried into position by an ice stream travelling from the N or NW.  Over most of its surface it appears to be deeply weathered and abraded, but some breakages are apparent, and these might be of different ages.  They look like glacial facets, since the fracture scars are themselves abraded.  Some damage might of course have been done down through the centuries because of the village obsession of tipping it over every year on November 5th............

There is no reason at all to think that the Devils Stone might have been collected up somewhere on the coast and carried into its present position by the villagers or their ancestors.......  However, there is one tradition that the stone came from Henscott, near Bradford,  to the SW of Shebbear and to the west of the River Torridge.  LIDAR images show that there were a number of small quarries in the area, no doubt used for local building purposes.

At both Shebbear and Henscott the local rocks are fine grained sedimentary rocks of Carboniferous age -- mostly mudstones, siltstones and sandstones.

There are still people who argue that the large glacial erratics in Devon and Cornwall are concentrated in the intertidal zone along the present coast.   This is just not true, as I have pointed out on many occasions.  On at least one occasion there were Quaternary ice caps on Dartmoor and Exmoor, and we know from other evidence that glacier ice from the Irish Sea Ice Stream pressed inland from the Bristol Channel;  but we still do not know where the boundary between local ice and "invasive ice" might have been.

The stone is said not to be local, and it looks to me as if it might be a coarse conglomerate or igneous rock.  Some say it is a gravelly sarsen stone or an "arenaceous conglomerate".  Others report it as being made of "quartz" and others claim it is made of pinkish granite.  It has dimensions c 6 ft x 4 ft and is reputed to weigh about a tonne.  It was clearly once a great deal bigger than it is today-- the facets are substantial, both on the top and bottom of the boulder.

The turning of the stone in 1946

In one of the reports on the stone, it says that there are other similar erratics in the vicinity.  One stone is mentioned c 750m to the north of the village, where the surface altitude is 173m.   I am intrigued............

25th Anniversary -- Kindle celebration

 

This has nothing to do with Stonehenge or the Ice Age, but one of the joys of being a blogger is that one can very occasionally post something quite irrelevant, in the hope that some people out there might be interested.  Anyway, forgive me dear reader -- but here's the deal........

-----------------------

For five days, starting on Monday 4th November, we will have a free "anniversary" promotion on the Amazon web site, with the Kindle versions of the first three books in the saga.  You can download the digital or "electronic" versions of the three novels completely free of change.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074CFGRJ6?binding=kindle_edition&qid=1730659108&sr=1-1&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin

Just click on the Kindle edition of each book to order your free download.

Enjoy!!

Here's the story:

In 1999 my wife and I flew to Gran Canaria on holiday, and en route I was struck down by aerotoxic syndrome. I felt sick before we landed, but then I experienced classic flu-like symptoms. I went straight to bed when we arrived at the apartment, and spent the night wide awake, feeling very ill indeed. One hears about "a fevered imagination" and now I know what it means. Anyway, a story came into my head - of a feisty woman called Martha Morgan. It was "narrated" -- I can still recall the female voice. Dates, places, characters, and a storyline covering the greater part of her life from 1796 to 1855. Individual episodes came into my head, and I even "heard" key conversations.

In the morning, not having slept a wink, I felt better, but the story was fixed firmly inside my head. I told my wife about this strange experience, and she said “Well then, you’d better start writing!” So I did..... and I knew that the story had to be told in Martha's own words, with immediacy, through diary entries.

Twenty-one years later, I still do not know what to make of that episode. l think that the story was “given” to me, and that in order to keep faith I had -- in the beginning -- to try and put into words the emotions and experiences of a pregnant, suicidal 18-year-old female who lived more than 200 years ago.

The narrative extended, eventually, across eight novels; and I can honestly say that the only one of those that involved the "invention"of characters and narrative was "Guardian Angel". The reasons for that will be obvious to the loyal readers of the Saga.

Carningli summit

 

This is another great image from the Preseli360 drone camera, showing just how rugged the summit is when seen from the S or SW.  Jagged rock faces and scree slopes are normally associated with shaded of lee side slopes facing N or NE, but here they face south and south-east.  I have pondered long and hard on the explanation for this -- and am convinced that the NW flank of the mountain was "cleaned up" by the overriding ice of the Irish Sea Ice Stream coming in from Cardigan Bay and travelling NW towards SE.  The face we are looking at in the photo is the plucked face with features we often associate with the down-glacier sides of roches moutonnees.  I think there may well have been a wind-scoop feature here as well, maybe lasting for thousands of years and allowing frost shattering and scree accumulation to proceed more or less unhindered.

And another from Hugh.........

Glama Plateau and Dynjandifoss

 

I rediscovered this excellent photo on a Facebook geomorphology page, showing the Dynjandifoss waterfall (the biggest waterfall in NW Iceland) on the edge of the Glama Plateau.   We did a helicopter reconnaissance and wandered about up there back in the 1970's -- it was fascinating because it was the location of a small ice cap that has now completely disappeared.

Put "Glama" into the search box and you will find some of my other posts.  

There are more excellent photos of this area on Gareth McCormack's web site:

https://www.garethmccormack.com/product-tag/iceland-westfjord/

Close-up of the waterfall.  Photo:  Gareth McCormack

Ken Follett jumps onto the bandwaggon

 

Quercus Publishing have just announced that they will publish a new novel about Stonehenge, written by Welsh author Ken Follett -- a man with a huge following of loyal readers.  The early announcement is all over the media today -- the book will be published in September of next year.

https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/ken-folletts-circle-of-days-kicks-off-his-hachette-global-deal#:~:text=Circle%20of%20Days%20examines%20the,an%20unmatched%20ability%20to%20lead%22

Here is the press release:

Hachette has revealed details of Ken Follett’s upcoming epic, Circle of Days, which is centred around the construction of one of the world’s most iconic monuments, Stonehenge. The announcement follows the new global deal with the publisher after Follett left his long-time publisher Pan Macmillan earlier this year.

Jon Butler, managing director at Quercus, and Ben Sevier, president and publisher of Hachette Book Group’s Grand Central Publishing, announced the global English-language publication details of the newly acquired author at Frankfurt Book Fair 2024. Quercus (UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada) and Grand Central (North American rights) will release the English-language edition on 23rd September 2025.

Circle of Days examines the mystery of the creation of Stonehenge, following three characters: Seft, "a flint miner with a gift"; the girl he loves, Neen; and Joia, Neen’s sister, a priestess "with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead".

Follett said: "Stonehenge is one of the world’s most iconic and recognisable monuments but, in reality, so little is known about it. How was it built? Why was it built? Who built it? I’ve written before about moments of great human achievement and I’ve always been drawn to stories of ordinary people doing seemingly impossible things, and what could be more extraordinary than the construction of this enormous monument?"

The book will also be published in foreign-language editions in different countries around the world, including the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Follett has been sold in over 80 countries and in 40 languages.

=============

Of course the book will be read and judged as fiction, and nobody will be too concerned about accuracy or authenticity  -- but it is quite inevitable that it will contain an extended section dealing with the heroic finding and transport of the bluestones.  So the mythology will be developed and extended.........

No criticism of Ken Follett -- he sees an opportunity here, and he is just a poor Welsh author trying to make a living, like everybody else...........

The Nevern Estuary anomaly

One of the big igneous erratics on the foreshore of the Nevern Estuary

https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Caradoc_Series,_Ordovician,_Wales

"In south-west Wales, extensive dark grey, silty, graptolitic, pyritous mudstone is Caradoc in age, and indicates that relatively deep water and low energy conditions had persisted since late Arenig times. However, in north Pembrokeshire and south Cardiganshire, the sedimentation was influenced by movement on the Newport Sands Fault. South of the fault, sedimentation was mainly of mud, which now comprises the Pen yr Aber and Cwm yr Eglwys mudstone formations. North of the fault, the upper part of the Cwm yr Eglwys Mudstone Formation interdigitates with and is overlain by turbiditic sandstone, mudstone, slumped beds and conglomerate of the Dinas Island Formation (P662414), which is well exposed in the cliff sections between Dinas Head and Poppit Sands."

According to the records, the Penyraber mudstone formation rests more or less conformably or discomformably on the complex rocks of the Llanvirn Fishguard Volcanic Group.  But according tom the geologists there must have been a long time interval between the accumulation of volcanic materials and the accumulation of the deep sea sediments above them.

Anyway, the Penyraber mudstones are typically black or dark grey, and they outcrop in the Nevern estuary  in the north side of the river, inside the sand dunes and along the shore as far as the "iron bridge".   There are no signs of interbedded or underlying volcanic deposits, and I am still pondering on the origins of the cluster of igneous erratics on the foreshore, between the high and low tide marks.  They still remind me o the strange igneous outcrops in Ty Canol Wood, but if the erratics come from there, the ice must have travelled northwards from Mynydd Preseli, and the jury is still out on that one.........

What I noticed yesterday, on one of our estuary walks, was a high concentration of stained quartz fragments, some of them quite angular, littering the beach surface near the Riverslea boat house.  There also seem to be two parallel alignments.  I must go back and examine them when I am not threatened by an incoming tide -- is there an outcrop of something interesting just beneath the beach surface?  Watch this space.......

The return of the Phantom Quarrymen

 

The recently stripped area on the flank of Carn Ddu Fach, following the latest bluestone quarry search.  Serious research, or frivolous desecration within a protected landscape?

I'm picking up on various social media comments and messages from mountain walkers that while some of the MPP team were digging September holes into the ground near the hamlet of Crosswell, the phantom quarrymen were also hard at work up in the rarified atmosphere of Mynydd Preseli, hunting for Neolithic quarries. 

Richard Bevins was at Rhosyfelin earlier in the year, doing some TV filming and  maybe collecting more samples, but otherwise there seem to have been no new excavations there.

There are rumours of work going on at Cerrig Marchogion and maybe other sites including Cerrig Lladron, but the main focus this year seems to have been Carn Ddu Fach, not far from Carn Alw and Foel Drygarn.  These sites are all flagged up as being of interest in earlier publications -- referred to initially as "possible" sources for bluestone monoliths after very modest rock sampling programmes and Xray studies in the field.  

Bevins, R. E., Pearce, N. J. G., & Ixer, R. A. (2021). Revisiting the provenance of the Stonehenge bluestones: Refining the provenance of the Group 2 non-spotted dolerites using rare earth element geochemistry. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 38, Article 103083. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103083

Richard E.Bevins, Nick J.G.Pearce, Mike Parker Pearson, Rob A.Ixer
Identification of the source of dolerites used at the Waun Mawn stone circle in the Mynydd Preseli, west Wales and implications for the proposed link with Stonehenge
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Volume 45, October 2022, 103556

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X2200219X

Now, however, see see the usual distortion of the field and laboratory findings so that "possible" sources within areas of many thousands of square metres are transformed into "probable" sources associated with particular outcrops such as Cerrig Marchogion, Cerrig Lladron and Carn Ddu Fach.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-unhealthy-obsession-with-bluestone.html

The geological work has become very messy because of the "stone 62" fiasco (remember the pentagonal footprint?) and the pantomime surrounding the imaginary "Lost Circle" at Waun Mawn.  But apparently the MPP team members are unapologetic about all of that, and are as obsessed as ever with finding bluestone monolith quarries..........

So to Carn Ddu Fach, which might (no stronger than that) be an approximate source for one of the Stonehenge unspotted dolerite bluestones.  Walkers up in the mountains report quite a mess up there, with the grassy turf stripped off the edges of the dolerite outcrops and then crudely replaced.  There are also yellow metal pins hammered into the turf.

Is this the "void" which the diggers assume to have been a stone extraction point?

According to reports of the latest MPP talk at the Bluestone Brewery, the learned professor claims that the diggers found a "void" from which a bluestone monolith had been taken, and also at least one "wedge" used in the quarrying process. He referred to a "stone extraction point" that appears no more convincing than the one that supposedly exists at Rhosyfelin.   Oh dear --- here we go again...........  Visitors to the site say that the void is a completely natural one not dissimilar to the voids, holes and gaps found all over these Preseli tors; and they say they can see not the slightest trace of quarrying activities.  

(It needs to be said that there ARE prehistoric quarrying sites on Preseli, and that they are characterised by distinct pits or stone extraction hollows, piles of waste rubble and transport trackways.  These features are NOT present at Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog or Carn Ddu Fach...........)

Finally there are whispers of further "surprises" at Waun Mawn -- so maybe the gang members have not completely given up on that site and its fantastical narrative.  Watch this space.

A visitor who took some photos at the Carn Ddu Fach site wonders whether this small stone just above the centre of the photo (between the recumbent block and the bedrock outcrop) is interpreted by the quarrymen as a "quarrying wedge" rather like those they claim to have found at Carn Goedog.   

Prof Tim Darvill

 I was saddened to hear about the passing, on 5th October, of Prof Tim Darvill.  Another victim of cancer, after a short illness, at the age of 66. 

Tim was of course one of the leading archaeologists of his day, with a wide range of interests and an impressive publications list.  He spent most of his academic career in the University of Bournemouth.  His work on Stonehenge and the bluestones was of course well known, and in West Wales his extensive chapter on "Neolithic and Bronze Age Pembrokeshire" written with Geoff Wainwright and published in Vol 1 of the Pembrokeshire County History (2016) was and is hugely influential. 

I disagreed with some of his ideas and agreed with others, and occasionally we exchanged messages and opinions.  I always found him polite and reasonable in his responses to my ideas, and he was kind enough to offer and provide help in the analysis of the Newall Boulder stored in Salisbury Museum.  Some of the data which he provided were incorporated into my article published in Quaternary Science Journal in June of this year.

To his credit, Tim recognized and acknowledged disputes in his field of interest, and was happy to cite the work of those with whom he disagreed.  Not everybody does that.........  He was one of the few archaeologists who was prepared to go on the record, in print, to express his concern about the elaborate narrative woven by Parker Pearson and his team around the Pembrokeshire bluestones.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2022/11/darvill-on-waun-mawn-myth.html

Tim's 2022 article was important, not least in demonstrating that I was not alone in having serious doubts about the reliability of the evidence and the spectacular claims made in recent years by Parker Pearson, Ixer, Bevins and others.

May he rest in peace.

MPP, Bluestone Brewery, 2024

 

MPP was at the Bluestone Brewery, giving his annual lecture to the assembled faithful.  Nobody seems to remember much of what he said, which means that he probably didn't say anything particularly memorable.  That's a compliment, not a criticism -- for the last ten years these talks have been used for flagging up one pretty outrageous "discovery" or "finding" after another, based upon the flimsiest of evidence -- only for all of them to be ditched or modified in short order when people like myself have questioned the wild and spectacular components of the narrative.

Have MPP and the team now settled down to doing some quiet and systematic studies of ring features in the Crosswell area, with an emphasis on teaching students the basic principles of field archaeology?  Since the first studies at Pensarn a few years ago, the work seems to have entered a new phase, in which Stonehenge features not at all.  Thank God for that.........

Anyway, the whispers from the convivial evening suggest that Waun Mawn is no longer part of the investigation re Stonehenge.  MPP has finally accepted that it was -- at best -- a monument that was never finished, and abandoned after a short space of time.  He still insists on the "discovery"of  holes intended for stones that never were put into position before the site was given up on.  I don't accept that, but he has to hang onto something, I suppose.  

The focus is now elsewhere in Preseli, notably at Crosswell, where several ring features or embanked enclosures can be seen on satellite images.  There are also subtle mounds worth investigating.  The suggestion seems to be that these features are mostly from the Bronze Age and later -- but that there may be Neolithic traces beneath.  That would not be surprising, given that there are abundant Neolithic traces in the wider landscape, as recorded over many years of research by other archaeologists.  

On the geological front, there is a suggestion that the geologists (Ixer and Bevins) are looking at natural outcrops and boulder blockfields around the ridge where a match for the volcanic characteristics of some bluestones and fragments has been found.  That would not be surprising either -- although the idea of spot provenancing and the discovery of more "quarrying sites" looks increasingly absurd.

Banc Llwydlos Ancient Village

 

One of Hugh's drone images of the site

Somebody posted (on Facebook) the lovely image of the Carn Euny ancient village in Cornwall.  This is reputed to be of Iron Age / Romano British construction, possibly with  parts that go much further back.  It's on a very similar scale to the Banc Llwydlos "village" on the northern side of the main Preseli ridge, which Hugh 365 and I have been mentioning at frequent intervals over the past few years.

See this listing:

https://coflein.gov.uk/media/86/748/dat21_03.pdf

Surely it MUST be excavated?

Myth making and national trauma

In the recent interview which I did with Jacky Henderson, I referred to the "national context" in which HH Thomas proposed his theory of bluestone transport.  I referred to national trauma and the need to believe in the civilising influence of our ancestors.  Jacky and Coral illustrated the point by inserting a couple of images of women working in munitions factories.  That was fine, but more appropriate images might have been those pasted above, if we are to appreciate what the national mood might have been........

The Great War, the Twilight of Empire and the Supremacy of Man...........

Ten years ago, I posted this:

I have done a number of posts in the past about the socio-political climate that existed in 1920-21 when HH Thomas was formulating his ideas on the Stonehenge bluestones -- and preparing and presenting his lecture to the Society of Antiquaries in which he flagged up the heroic efforts of our Neolithic ancestors.

I have picked up on the fact that there was a great need, in Britain at that time, for reassurance and for a demonstration of the fact that Britain was a place of ancient wisdom and high civilization -- and having to cope with barbarians and the forces of darkness in various parts of the world. The trauma of the Great War was still in everybody's minds. The aspirations of the British Empire were of course never far away either....

Two authors who have found expression for this are David Keys and Stephen Briggs. David Keys, in the article copied above (from The Independent, 22nd April 1990), said: "But then came the Great War, twilight of Empire, and the supremacy of man. Out went natural explanations as to how Stonehenge's monoliths arrived on Salisbury Plain. In came a theory that made prehistoric engineers look, in their own Stone Age sort of way, every bit as capable as the ancient Egyptians............. The idea that the monument was constructed by ignorant savages directed by engineers from some superior civilisation struck a chord with 20th century Britons who lamented the passing of Empire, but cherished what they perceived to be Britain's civilizing role in the world."

Stephen Briggs, in an unpublished paper called "Preseli, Stonehenge and the Welsh Bronze Age", said this: "Because archaeology in the post-War years (ie after 1918) demanded our forebears to have been intrepid and sophisticated, and since it could be demonstrated that a bunch of schoolboys were able to devise a method to move the stones, therefore if it were possible, therefore it was probable........."

... and then this: ".........British prehistory has been anxious to own an important proof of early human prowess, but instead of being satisfied with the achievement represented by the erection of the stones at Stonehenge, we have cast Neolithic and Bronze Age man in our own mould, as a man of extensive geographical knowledge, a man of taste and one who left behind remains from which his political systems and trading routes could easily be traced."

That all feeds in very neatly to my comments about the lack of scrutiny of Thomas's ideas, and also into my post about the romance of the venturesome traders.

This is from another previous post:

A few months ago I spoke to the archaeologist and antiquarian Stephen Briggs about the idea (which I explore in the book) that sometimes an archaeological idea can be used for the promotion of the national interest. We only have to look at the manner in which the pyramids, the Easter Island heads, Angkor Wat, and the Great Wall of China are promoted as national icons or as symbols of great and ancient civilizations. Stonehenge is no different -- as journalist David Keys has pointed out in assorted newspaper articles. Stephen confirmed for me that after the First World War there was a strong emphasis -- during the rebuilding of a battered world -- on the triumph of civilization over the forces of darkness, and on the civilizing influence of the British Empire. Archaeologists and politicians were interested in flagging up the great achievements of our ancestors -- and when HH Thomas came up with his story of the great stone-hauling expeditions this was like manna from heaven! The media loved it, and I actually think that the lack of critical analysis and criticism from other academics was largely down to the fact they they thought any criticism would have been UNPATRIOTIC. There was also, says Stephen, an attempt to show that the Neolithic tribes of Britain were actually cleverer than the Neolithic tribes of Germany -- the defeated enemy. German archaeologists were, at the time, discovering that most of their megalithic monuments were built of stones collected from the immediate vicinity; what better way to show the "superiority" of British Neolithic tribes than to show that they were capable of collecting their stones from vast distances away? So the Stonehenge story was born -- as a way of flagging up to the world that the inhabitants of this small island were incredibly clever, at a time when others were still brutes who were incapable of organizing great civil engineering projects. "Anything you can do, we can do better!" This all sounds too crazy to be true? Indeed -- but you'd better believe it, since it's quite well authenticated.

==============

The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that in the years following WW1 people WANTED reassurance and national heroic myths -- and HHT was only too happy to oblige.  And to their eternal discredit, the archaeological and geological establishments went along with the myth-making without ever subjecting HHT's ideas to proper scrutiny.

The Lake House meteorite - in the news again

I'm intrigued by some of the key components in the story as it is told by Colin and Judith Pillinger -- ie the arrival on Planet Earth c 30,000 years ago, the "frozen preservation" for 20,000 years, the discovery by the Neolithic or Bronze Age inhabitants of Salisbury Plain, the burial in a ceremonial mound, and finally the rediscovery and extraction from the calcium-rich environment.  I am trying to track down the published papers which underpin this story...........

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-evidence-of-glaciation-on-salisbury.html

I tried to get hold of the research data more than 10 years ago, without much success.........

===========================

The recent paper:

Pillinger, CT and Pillinger, JM. 2024 Grandfather's stone: the Lake House Meteorite, Britain's largest and earliest extraterrestrial sample. Wilts Arch & Nat Hist Magazine 117, pp 181-196.

========================

The record:

Lake House 51°8.98’N, 1°48.60’W

England, United Kingdom

Found: Early 20th century

Classification: Ordinary chondrite (H5)

History: Lake House is a large Elizabethan country house dating from 1578 located in the village of Lake in the county of Wiltshire, England. Photographic evidence demonstrates that the meteorite was located on the top step at the main entrance to Lake House at least as early as the first decade of the twentieth century. Robert Hutchison (Curator of meteorites, NHM) was notified of the existence of the meteorite in a letter from Robin Bailey dated 13 Nov 1991. A note written on a copy of this letter in Robert Hutchison’s hand writing and initialed "RH" and dated 16 Sept 1991 reads: "probably a chondrite Ol +Px +Ct …? metal with Ni …sulphides". Mr Bailey was unaware of a detailed history of the meteorite, which he described as being collected by his grandfather.

Physical characteristics: The single remaining mass can be recognized as the major portion of a larger meteorite. The existing fragment, measuring 55 × 38 × 35 cm, is dark brown, extremely weathered and deeply fractured, consistent with being exposed to the elements for a long period of time.

Petrography: Distinct chondrules are present, but these tend to have poorly defined boundaries. Porphyritic types predominate, but barred olivine and radial pyroxene textured chondrules are also common. Chondrule mesostasis is recrystallized, with grain sizes generally below 50 μm. The sample is cut by a network of veins, up to 2 mm thick, filled with secondary weathering products.

Geochemistry: The oxygen isotope composition of the meteorite was measured (after washing in EATG to remove weathering products) δ17O = 1.99 ± 0.05 (1σ); δ18O = 2.76 ± 0.09 (1σ); Δ17O = 0.55 ± 0.01 (1σ) (n=2) which is in the accepted range for H chondrites.

Classification: In thin section the sample is a heavily weathered (W5), moderately shocked (S4), equilibrated ordinary chondrite (H5).

Specimens: The owners of the main mass have agreed to loan it on a long term basis to the local county museum in Salisbury, where it will be on display to the general public. A 1 kg representative mass will remain at OU as the type specimen for research purposes.

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull.php?code=56144
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2013/04/scientific-note-on-lake-house-meteorite.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253308918_The_Meteorite_from_Lake_House

https://www.science.org/content/article/mystery-meteorite-house-sting

===============================

From a BBC News write-up

"It's very unusual to find a meteorite this big in Britain," Prof Colin Pillinger said.

"They are very unstable, they contain a lot of metallic iron which oxidises and the meteorite falls to pieces.

"So the only logical explanation of how such a big meteorite may have survived being on Earth for 30,000 years is that it fell on or near a glacier and was in a deep freeze for 20,000 years."

Professor Pillinger, famed for his work on the Beagle II Mars explorer, said he believed the low-humidity and freezing conditions would have protected the rock from weathering.

"Then along came some druids, scavenging on Salisbury Plain for strange or interesting stones, and it was picked up and used in a chalk mound," he said.

"And the 'reducing environment' of chalk - the anaerobic environment - would have prevented the iron from oxidising."

The giant fragment of asteroid is then thought to have been unearthed by a previous occupant of Lake House, who is known to have excavated several nearby burial mounds.

"He was an archaeologist and was digging every barrow up in sight trying to find treasure," said Professor Pillinger.

"And we think he got it out of a barrow and added it to his collection."

The meteorite, known as a common chondrite, is due to go on display at the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum in autumn.

Adrian Green, the museum's director, said there was still "a lot of debate" about how the rock came to be on the doorstep of Lake House.

"But it's not uncommon for exotic rocks to be built into burial mounds," he added.

"And it's still covered in chalk which is the bedrock of the landscape.

"And it's colossal - it would take four people to lift it - and it's not aesthetically pleasing, so common sense dictates that this has not been shipped from abroad at ridiculous cost and significant effort, but that it came from the UK."