The Geological Story of the Isle of WightHughes, J. Cecil (John Cecil)
Science
The Geological Story of the Isle of Wight
Hughes, J. Cecil (John Cecil)
Geology -- England -- Isle of Wight; Geology, Stratigraphic -- Tertiary; Paleontology -- England -- Isle of Wight
That the gravels of the south of England belong largely to the age of
ice, is shown by remains of the mammoth contained in many. These,
however, are found in later gravels than those we have considered so
far, gravels laid down after the land had been cut down to much lower
levels. These lower gravels are known as Valley gravels, because they
lie along the course of existing valleys, the Plateau gravels having
been laid down before the present valleys came into existence. Teeth
of the mammoth are found in the Thames valley, and on the shores of
Southampton Water, in gravels about 50 to 70 feet above sea level, and
have been found also in the Isle of Wight at Freshwater Gate, at the
top of the cliffs near Brook, and in other places. The gravels near
Brook with the clays on which they rest have been contorted, and the
gravel forced into pockets in the clay, in a manner that suggests the
action of grounding ice ploughing into the soil.
The high level gravels must belong to an early stage of the Glacial
Epoch. We get some idea of the great length of time this age must have
lasted, as we look from St. George's Down over the lower country of
the centre of the Island. After the formation of the St. George's Down
gravel the vast mass of strata between this and the opposite downs of
St. Boniface and St. Catherine's was removed by denudation; and
gravels were then laid down on the lower land, along Blake Down, at
Arreton, over Hale common, and along the course of the Yar. Patches of
gravel occur on the Sandown and Shanklin cliffs. At Little Stairs a
gravel, largely of angular chert, reaches a thickness of 12 feet, and
in parts are several feet of loam above gravel.
At the west of the Island a great sheet of gravel covers the top of
Headon Hill, reaching a height of 390 feet. It appears sometimes to
measure 30 feet in thickness. Like that on St. George's Down it slopes
towards the Solent, resting on an eroded surface, in this case of
Tertiary strata; and here too the upper part of the sheet has been
removed by the wearing out of the deep valley between the Hill and the
Freshwater Downs. The sheet lies on an old valley bottom, which sloped
from the chalk downs on the south, then much higher and more extensive
than now. Here too we may see something of the length of the Glacial
Period. For at Freshwater Gate is a much later gravel, in which teeth
of the mammoth have been found. It was probably derived from older
gravels that once lay to the south, as the flints are rounded by
transport. But the formation of all these gravels appears to belong to
the Glacial Period; and as we stand in Freshwater Gate, and look at
this great gap in the downs worn out by the Western Yar, and think of
the time when a river valley passed over the tops of the High Downs
and Headon Hill, we receive a strong impression of the length of the
great Ice Age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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