Summary
Nearly four hundred boreholes drilled for water in East Anglia have proved anomalously large thicknesses of drift deposits, indicating the presence of a complicated system of buried channels. These infilled channels are commonly sixty to a hundred metres or more in depth, narrow, steep-sided, with irregularly undulating longitudinal profiles, and are considered to have originated from sub-glacial erosion during the melting of the East Anglian ice. Except in eastern Norfolk the channels are, in general, confined to the bottoms of the main river-valleys and are genetically related to the Great Chalky (Gipping) Boulder Clay.
The nature and distribution of the buried channels and their drift fill are described in detail. They are compared and contrasted with the sub-glacial tunnel-valleys of Denmark and northern Germany and a common mode of origin is suggested. The relationships between the buried channels and the later terrace deposits of the East Anglian valleys is discussed. Finally, the age of the Chalky (Gipping) Boulder Clay is considered and the conclusion drawn that it may well be Weichselian and not Saale, as generally supposed.