The British-Irish Ice Sheet - Antarctic Glaciers

The British-Irish Ice Sheet               AntarcticGlaciers.org         Royal Holloway University of London

The British-Irish Ice Sheet

Bethan Davies cleaning a
face for sedimentological
logging in County Durham.

My PhD research at the Department for Geography, Durham University (PhD awarded 2009) was
orientated towards understanding dynamic interactions between the British and Fennoscandian ice
sheets in the North Sea. I was interested in how various ice lobes interacted, and whether there was
any evidence for incursion of Scandinavian ice in north-east England.

Field site locations
My research was focussed at just four sites: Warren House Gill, the Easington Raised Beach, Whitburn
Bay, and boreholes from the North Sea. These sites, on the coastline of northern England, were ideally
located to capture the sedimentological signal of different ice masses during Quaternary glaciations.

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The British-Irish Ice Sheet                AntarcticGlaciers.org          Royal Holloway University of London

PhD field study sites in northern England, overlain on the SRTM digital elevation model.
Figure from Davies et al., 2013: The Quaternary of Northumerland, Durham and North
Yorkshire, QRA Field Guide.

At Warren House Gill, Easington and at Whitburn Bay, sediments were exposed in dramatic coastal
exposures, allowing detailed investigations of glacial sediments. I used sedimentological petrological
techniques to investigate glacigenic depositional processes, provenance and timing of deposition.
These well-exposed sediments offer unique insights into ice-sheet dynamics during Middle and Late-
Pleistocene glaciations in NE England.

   Complexly interbedded, folded    This sand was deposited in front      Folded and deformed sands
   and deformed sands in Middle      of the glacier (proglacial), but   overlying glacial till at Whitburn
  Pleistocene sediments at Warren     then overridden by the ice.            Bay, County Durham.
             House Gill.

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The British-Irish Ice Sheet                   AntarcticGlaciers.org            Royal Holloway University of London

  Two tills rest on top of Magnesian     Channel of sand and gravel         Carboniferous limestone boulder
   Limestone bedrock at Whitburn          deposited at the ice-bed             in till at Whitburn Bay. The
      Bay, overlain by deformed                  interface.                    boulder is shaped by glacial
      glaciofluvial sands (sands                                             erosion and scratched by contact
   deposited by a proglacial river).                                            with other rocks and ice.
   Note the large, faceted boulders
  at the boundary between the two
                  tills.

   Boulder pavement at Whitburn          Folded and deformed sands
      Bay, County Durham. The          overlying glacial till at Whitburn
  boulders represent an erosional           Bay, County Durham.
  surface between two glacial tills.

Accessing the sediments was difficult at Warren House Gill as they had been covered by mining waste
from Twentieth Century coal mining in County Durham. We had to use a JCB to uncover the
sediments!

A JCB uncovering sediments at Warren House
Gill.

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The British-Irish Ice Sheet               AntarcticGlaciers.org        Royal Holloway University of London

Principle research outcomes
Some of the key findings related to the timing and interaction between key ice lobes flowing
eastwards into the North Sea during the Last Glacial Maximum. Our work showed that ice flowed easts
through the Tyne Gap first, and then flowed south, with ice sourced in the Cheviots. This North Sea
Lobe was deflected onto eastern England, probably by the pressure of confluent Scandinavian ice in
the North Sea.

Ice flow during the Devensian and Last Glacial Maximum in northern England. Figure
from Davies et al,. 2013: The Quaternary of Northumberland, Durham and North
Yorkshire.

Warren House Gill contains some of the oldest glacial sediments in northern England, dating to the
Middle Pleistocene. They were reported to contain Scandinavian erratics, thus providing evidence of
Middle Pleistocene ice-sheet incursions into northern England.

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The British-Irish Ice Sheet                  AntarcticGlaciers.org           Royal Holloway University of London

An extensive sedimentological and provenance analysis suggested that the lowest diamicton at
Warren House Gill is actually a water-lain diamicton, deposited under glaciomarine conditions infront
of an encroaching ice mass. Although we found erratics and microfossils that may derive from the
northeastern North Sea, we found no definitive evidence of Scandinavian erratics. It seems
increasingly unlikely that the Scandinavian ice sheet ever reached the coast of eastern England
during the Pleistocene.

Below is a list of publications from this work.

Publications
2013

Davies, B. J., Yorke, L., Bridgland, D. R., and Roberts, D. H. (2013). The Quaternary of Northumberland,
Durham and North Yorkshire: Field Guide, pp. 222. Quaternary Research Association, London.

Demarchi, B., Collins, M. J., Tomiak, P. J., Davies, B. J., and Penkman, K. E. H. (2013). Intra-crystalline
protein diagenesis (IcPD) in Patella vulgata. Part II: Breakdown and temperature sensitivity.
Quaternary Geochronology 16 (0), 158-172.

2012

Livingstone, S.J., Evans, D.J.A., Ó Cofaigh, C., Davies, B.J., Merritt, J.W., Huddart, D., Mitchell, W.A.,
Roberts, D.H., & Yorke, L., 2012. Glaciodynamics of the central sector of the British-Irish Ice Sheet in
Northern England. Earth-Science reviews 111, 25-55.

Davies, B.J., Roberts, D.H., Bridgland, D.R., & Ó Cofaigh, C., 2012. Dynamic Devensian ice flow in NE
England: a sedimentological reconstruction. Boreas 41, 337-366.

Davies, B.J., Roberts, D.H., Bridgland, D.R., Ó Cofaigh, C., Riding, J.B., Demarchi, B., Penkman, K.E.H.,
& Pawley, S.M., 2012. Timing and depositional environments of the Scandinavian glaciation of
northeast England: New evidence from Warren House Gill, County Durham. Quaternary Science
Reviews 44, 180-212.

2011

Davies, B.J.,Roberts, D.H., Bridgland, D.R., Ó Cofaigh, C., & Riding, J.B., 2011. Provenance and
depositional environments of Quaternary sediments in the North Sea Basin. Journal of Quaternary
Science 26, 59-75.

2009

Davies, B.J., Bridgland D.R., Roberts, D.H., Ó Cofaigh, C., Pawley, S.M., Candy, I., Demarchi, B.,
Penkman, K.E.H., & Austin, W.E.N., 2009. The age and stratigraphic context of the Easington Raised
Beach, County Durham, UK. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 120, 183-198.

Davies, B.J., Roberts, D.H., Ó Cofaigh, C., Bridgland, D.R., Riding, J., Phillips E.R., & Teasdale, D.A.,
2009. Interlobate ice sheet dynamics and ice marginal controls on sediment deposition at Whitburn
Bay, County Durham, England. Boreas 38, 555-578.

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The British-Irish Ice Sheet                         AntarcticGlaciers.org                Royal Holloway University of London

PhD Thesis
You can download my PhD thesis from here.

Citation: Davies, B.J., 2009. British and Fennoscandian Ice-Sheet Interactions during the Quaternary,
Unpubl. PhD Thesis. Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, 502 pp.

Bethan Davies Thesis (Zipped PDFs – 70MB)

Ethesis from the Durham University website (smaller)

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