The glaciations of East Anglia and the East Midlands: a differentiation based on stone-orientation measurements of the tills

Abstract

Summary Measurements of the long-axis orientation of stones in Older Drift tills of East Anglia and the East Midlands have been made to determine the direction of ice movement. The directions of preferred orientation of the long axes of the stones, together with the stratigraphical evidence of certain of the tills measured, give a pattern of direction and stratigraphy in which three successive episodes of ice advance may be distinguished. These are named the Cromer, Lowestoft and Gipping advances. The Cromer Advance deposited the North Sea Drift, the Lowestoft Advance Pennine Drift in the East Midlands and chalky boulder-clay (including Baden-Powell's Lowestoft Boulder-clay) in East Anglia, and the Gipping Advance chalky boulder-clay (including Baden-Powell's Gipping Boulder-clay) both in the East Midlands and East Anglia. Measurements of the long-axis orientation of stones in Older Drift tills of East Anglia and the East Midlands have been made to determine the direction of ice movement. The directions of preferred orientation of the long axes of the stones, together with the stratigraphical evidence of certain of the tills measured, give a pattern of direction and stratigraphy in which three successive episodes of ice advance may be distinguished. These are named the Cromer, Lowestoft and Gipping advances. The Cromer Advance deposited the North Sea Drift, the Lowestoft Advance Pennine Drift in the East Midlands and chalky boulder-clay (including Baden-Powell's Lowestoft Boulder-clay) in East Anglia, and the Gipping Advance chalky boulder-clay (including Baden-Powell's Gipping Boulder-clay) both in the East Midlands and East Anglia. The presence of interglacial deposits below the till of the Cromer Advance (Cromer Forest Bed Series), and between the tills of the Lowestoft and Gipping advances (Hoxne Interglacial) makes it possible (a) to recognize two glaciations, the first including the Cromer and Lowestoft advances, the second the Gipping Advance, and (b) to correlate the two glaciations respectively with the Elster and Saale glaciations of North-West Europe. The Lowestoft and Gipping glaciations as now defined correspond with those so-named by Baden-Powell except that the Lowestoft Glaciation is taken to include the Cromer Advance.