Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
"If the ice-sheet, instead of flowing over the beds, happens to plough
into them or abut against them, it would bend up a boss of chalk, as at
Beeston. A more extensive disturbance, like that at Trimingham drives
before it a long ridge of the bads, and nips up the chalk, till, like
a cloth creased by the sliding of a heavy book, it is folded into an
inverted anticlinal. A slight increase of pressure, and the third stage
is reached--the top of the anticlinal being entirely sheared off, the
chalk boulder driven up an incline, and forced into the overlying
boulder-clays." (Clement Reid.)]
"Attempts have been made to correlate the deposits over the whole area,
but with very indifferent success. A consideration of the consequences
of the invasion of the country by an ice-stream from the northeast will
prepare us for any conceivable complication of the deposits.
"The main movement was against the drainage of the country, so that
the ice-front must have been frequently in water. There would be
aqueous deposition and erosion; the kneading up of morainic matter into
ground-moraine; irregularities of distribution and deposition due to ice
floating in an extra-morainic lake; flood-washes at different points of
overflow; and other confusing causes, which make it rather matter for
surprise that any order whatever is traceable.
"I now turn to the valley of the Trent. We find that it occupies such a
position that it would be exposed, successively or simultaneously, to
the action of ice-streams of most diverse origin. I have shown that the
area to the westward of Lichfield was invaded at one period by a Welsh
glacier, and at a subsequent one by the Irish Sea Glacier, and both of
these streams entered the valley of the Trent or some of its affluents.
From the eastward, again, the great North Sea Glacier encroached in like
manner, carrying the Great Chalky Boulder-Clay even into the drainage
area of the westward-flowing rivers near Coventry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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