Two-stage opening of the Dover Strait and the origin of island Britain
File(s)
Published version
OA Location
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Late Quaternary separation of Britain from mainland Europe is considered to be a consequence of spillover of a large proglacial lake in the Southern North Sea basin. Lake spillover is inferred to have caused breaching of a rock ridge at the Dover Strait, although this hypothesis remains untested. Here we show that opening of the Strait involved at least two major episodes of erosion. Sub-bottom records reveal a remarkable set of sediment-infilled depressions that are deeply incised into bedrock that we interpret as giant plunge pools. These support a model of initial erosion of the Dover Strait by lake overspill, plunge pool erosion by waterfalls and subsequent dam breaching. Cross-cutting of these landforms by a prominent bedrock-eroded valley that is characterised by features associated with catastrophic flooding indicates final breaching of the Strait by high-magnitude flows. These events set-up conditions for island Britain during sea-level highstands and caused large-scale re-routing of NW European drainage.
Date Issued
2017-04-04
Date Acceptance
2017-02-24
Citation
Nature Communications, 2017, 8
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
8
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2017. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sponsor
English Heritage
The Royal Society
Marine Environment Protection Fund
Grant Number
3543 MAIN
512009.K501/SJC/ng
29964
Subjects
Science & Technology
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Science & Technology - Other Topics
EUROPEAN ICE-SHEET
NORTH-SEA BASIN
EASTERN ENGLISH-CHANNEL
EXTREME FLOOD EVENTS
MIDDLE PLEISTOCENE
SYSTEM
RIVER
EVOLUTION
DISCHARGES
HOLOCENE
MD Multidisciplinary
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
15101
Date Publish Online
2017-04-04