On the Interglacial Gravel-Beds of the Isle of Wight and the South of England, and the Conditions of their Formation

Abstract

The Author, after referring to the investigations of previous authors, especially of Mr. Codrington and the officers of the Geological Survey, with which he in the main agrees, points out that the origin and mode of formation of the gravel-terraces of the Isle of Wight and of the New Forest district are still open to discussion. He points out that the levels of the higher beds on both sides of the Solent, up to about 400 feet, indicate the amount of subsidence of the whole area at a time when the stratified gravels, composed mainly of rolled flints, were formed at the margin of the uprising ridges of the Chalk in the post-Glacial Epoch, for this part of England. Preceding this was the great uplift indicated by Godwin-Austen, by which the British Isles were joined to the continent as land. By this uplift the English Channel was laid dry, and along its centre there ran a river from its source about the Straits of Dover to its outlet into the ocean through the Continental Platform. This river-channel is laid down on the Admiralty Charts under the name of ‘the Hurd Deep’ for a distance of 30 miles of its course, and has been named by the Author ‘the English Channel River.’ The Author considers the gravel-beds of this region to be the representatives of the High-level Gravels of the Midlands and Cromer; also of the ‘Interglacial Gravels’ of Cheshire and Lancashire; and of the shell-bearing beds of the Denbighshire Hills, and of Moel Tryfaen in Wales, at levels of about 1200 feet above the sea.

The formation of the Strait of Dover

“…A proto-Channel River aligned broadly ENE-WSW along the axis of the basin must have existed at this time ). It appears that this river was formed by the confluence of the southern British and northern French rivers (Hull 1912;Dingwall 1975;Jones 1981) (Fig. 2).…”

The Quaternary history of the English Channel: an introduction

“…A proto-Channel River aligned broadly ENE-WSW along the axis of the basin must have existed at this time (Gibbard, 1988;Lericolais, 1997, this issue). This river was formed by the confluence of the southern British and northern French rivers (Hull, 1912;Pomerol 1973;Dingwall, 1975;Jones, 1981). Following the formation of the Dover Strait (Pas de Calais) in the later Middle Pleistocene, the Channel River also carried the drainage of southern central England (the Thames system) and western Belgium (the Scheldt system), together with the Rhine-Meuse system following the Saalian glaciation (Gibbard, 1988(Gibbard, , 1995.…”