Early stages in the physiographic evolution of a portion of the East Midlands

Abstract

Summary The paper deals with an area of over 600 square miles falling largely within the drainage basins of the rivers Nene and Welland. Formations present comprise a succession from the Lower Lias to the Oxford Clay and Pleistocene-Recent drifts. Six-inch mapping, supplemented by numerous borehole records, discloses differences between the present and the sub-boulder-clay topography. The significance of these differences is discussed. Relics of the surface on which the present cycle of erosion was initiated are preserved as bevels on the solid formation. This surface, which falls from 750 feet O.D. in the west to below 250 feet in the east, is believed to have been tilted toward the North Sea basin. Study of the stages of river diversion and capture provides strong evidence of an original W.-E. consequent drainage. The controlling effect of structure on river development is clearly shown. Certain lines of drainage are believed to have existed as subsequent streams before the start of the present cycle of erosion. The origin of the large-scale superficial structures of the region is reconsidered. It is claimed that they were produced under periglacial conditions. The authors suggest that an important part was played by perennially frozen ground in the physiographic evolution of the region.

Evidence for late Middle Pleistocene glaciation of the British margin of the southern North Sea

“…This interpretation was subsequently confirmed by work as part of the TVPP, when the gravel was shown to contain characteristic glacial clast types, including Rhaxella chert (Bridgland et al ., ). Langford also mapped (following Kellaway and Taylor, ) a meltwater channel between the Welland and Nene valleys and glaciolacustrine deposits to the west of Peterborough, associating all of this evidence with a post‐Anglian–pre‐Devensian glaciation. Langford considered the minimum age of this glaciation to be MIS 8, from its relation to MIS 7 interglacial deposits within Nene Terrace 2 (Langford et al ., ; Langford and Briant, ).…”

Drainage network reorganization affecting the Nene and Welland catchments of eastern England as a result of a late Middle Pleistocene glacial advance

“…Langford (, ) envisaged something similar to the first of these scenarios and that the Southorpe dry valley originated as a subaerial glacial meltwater channel (cf. Martini, ), as suggested by Kellaway and Taylor (); consequently the River Welland could not have existed at this time. The above reinterpretation of these deposits as an ice‐contact fan and further examination of the disposition of River Welland Second Terrace deposits (see below), however, suggest that the River Welland was in existence.…”

Pleistocene sediments, soils and landscape evolution at Stebbing, Essex

“…This is more consistent with the second hypothesis that the structures are gulls formed by processes of 'periglacial cambering' (Wilson and Lake, 1983; Wilson, in Whiteman et a/., 19831, the complex bending and cracking of strata at valley margins. These phenomena are widespread in Mesozoic rocks of the Midlands (Arkell, 1947;Kellaway and Taylor, 1953;Shadbolt and Mabe, 1970;Briggs et. a/., 1976) but have also been recorded in Pleistocene gravels, for instance in the upper Thames basin (Kellaway et a/., 1974;) and near Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire (Baker, 1977).…”