Chapter 7 The Quaternary Sediments of the North Sea

Modelling Holocene tides on the NW European continental shelf

“…A limited amount of deposition has occurred in the North Sea as a whole during the Holocene, and this deposition has been largely bathymetrically controlled (Caston, 1979). This is true of most of the European shelf: Holocene sediment thickness reaches 127 m in the Norwegian Channel, 100 m in the Kish Bank area of the central Irish Sea (Whittington, 1978), and lesser thickness in other hollows and channels, but these deposits rarely cover large areas and are usually in deep water.…”

Large-scale glacitectonic deformation in response to active ice sheet retreat across Dogger Bank (southern central North Sea) during the Last Glacial Maximum

“…The North Sea (c. 500 km wide, 50 to 400 m deep) separating the UK from Scandinavia and northern mainland Europe (Figure 1a) has had a long and complex geological history, commencing with rifting during the Jurassic-Early Cretaceous and followed by subsequent thermal cooling and subsidence (Glennie and Underhill, 1998;Zanella and Coward, 2003). Its more recent history has been dominated by the deposition of a locally thick sequence (over 800 m) of Quaternary sediments (Caston, 1977(Caston, , 1979Gatliff et al, 1994). This sedimentary record preserves evidence for the advance of several major ice sheets from the surrounding land masses into the North Sea at different stages during the Quaternary.…”

The Quaternary geology of the North Sea basin

“…This epicontinental shelf area has had a long and complex geological history with its present‐day structural configuration largely being the result of rifting during the Jurassic–Early Cretaceous, followed by thermal subsidence (Glennie and Underhill, ; Zanella and Coward, ). Since the middle Cenozoic, the Central Graben region of the North Sea basin has accumulated up to 3000 m of Oligocene to Holocene sediments, which locally includes more than 800 m of Quaternary sediments (Caston, , ; Gatliff et al ., ). Although a detailed understanding of the depositional history recorded by this sedimentary succession is yet to be fully established, these sediments preserve evidence for the advance and retreat of several ice sheets into the North Sea from the adjacent landmasses at different times during the Quaternary.…”

“…The traditional view of the Quaternary (Pleistocene) glacial history of the North Sea suggests that during the past 500 ka the region has encountered three major glacial episodes (separated by warmer interglacial periods; Fig. 2), namely the Elsterian [oldest, Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 12], Saalian (MIS 10-6) and Weichselian (youngest, MIS 5d-2) stage glaciations (Caston, 1979;Eisma et al, 1979;Jansen et al, 1979;Balson and Cameron, 1985;Cameron et al, 1987Cameron et al, , 1992Sejrup et al, 1987Sejrup et al, , 1995Sejrup et al, , 2000Sejrup et al, , 2003Ehlers, 1990;Andersen et al, 1995;Graham et al, 2007Graham et al, , 2010Graham et al, , 2011Kristensen et al, 2007;Bradwell et al, 2008;Stoker et al, 2011;Stewart et al, 2013;Ottesen et al, 2014). The main evidence for this tripartite subdivision is the preservation of discrete sets of palaeo-channels within the sedimentary record, which are interpreted as tunnel valleys.…”