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1.
The Thame is one of the principal left-bank affluents of the Thames, the largest river in southern England; it joins the Upper Thames at Dorchester, ∼20 km downstream of Oxford. Its terraces include a younger group of four, which date from the late Middle Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene, are disposed subparallel to the modern river, and represent drainage within the modern catchment. At higher levels there are three older terraces, the Three Pigeons, Tiddington and Chilworth terraces, which are assigned to MIS 16, 14 and 12. With much gentler downstream gradients, these are fragmentary remnants of much more substantial fluvial deposits, indicating a much larger river that was disrupted by the Anglian (MIS 12) glaciation. This interpretation supersedes an earlier view that the glacigenic deposits in the Thame headwaters correlate with the Blackditch terrace, the highest of the younger group, which has hitherto provided an argument that the glaciation in this region occurred in MIS 10. It is suggested that the headwaters of the pre-Anglian ‘Greater Thame’ river were located near Northampton and that the Milton Sands of that area represent an upstream counterpart of the Chilworth terrace deposits. It is envisaged that this early Middle Pleistocene drainage geometry, located between the Jurassic limestone and Chalk escarpments, developed as a result of the increase in uplift rates that followed the Mid-Pleistocene Revolution (MPR). It is suggested that before this time, including during the Early Pleistocene, the modern Thame catchment and adjacent regions drained southeastward through the Chalk escarpment, but these small rivers lacked the erosional power to cut through the Chalk in pace with the faster uplift occurring in the early Middle Pleistocene, and so became diverted to the southwest, subparallel to the Chalk escarpment, to form the pre-Anglian ‘Greater Thame’ tributary of the Upper Thames. The post-MPR uplift is estimated to decrease northwestward from 90 m in the Middle Thames to 75 m near the Thame-Thames confluence and to 65 m upstream of Oxford. The post-Anglian (post-450 ka) component of uplift decreases northward from 33 m near the Thame-Thames confluence to an estimated ∼20 m in the Northampton area; the relative stability of the latter area makes feasible the proposed correlation between the Milton Sands and the pre-Anglian River Thame. Limited post-Anglian uplift in the Northampton area is also inferred from the upstream convergence of the terraces of the modern rivers Nene and Great Ouse. These observed lateral variations in vertical crustal motions reflect lateral variations in crustal properties (including heat flow, crustal thickness, and thickness of underplating at the base of the crust) that are known independently. This study thus provides, for the first time, an integrated explanation of the Pleistocene drainage development across a large region of central-southern England.  相似文献   

2.
Pleistocene sediments at Leet Hill, southern Norfolk are examined in terms of their sedimentary structures, palaeocurrent indicators, clast and heavy mineral lithology and litho- and morphostratigraphic position. Colour of the quartzite and vein-quartz clasts is used to differentiate the Bytham and the Kesgrave sands and gravels, with the Bytham sands and gravels having a significantly higher proportion of coloured material. The Kirby Cane sands and gravels are the lower sedimentary unit and were deposited by the Bytham river, which drained a catchment extending into central England. At Leet Hill, erosion of the Kesgrave Sands and Gravels by the Bytham river has given the Kirby Cane sands and gravels a distinctive lithological assemblage. Trace clast lithologies suggest that the Kesgrave Sands and Gravels in the region of Leet Hill were deposited in a coastal location with an input from northern sources as well as southern and Welsh sources diagnostic of the Thames catchment. The glaciofluvial Leet Hill Sands and Gravels were deposited by outwash from the Anglian Scandinavian ice sheet. Initially the flow direction of the outwash was determined by the Bytham river valley, but this changed to a southerly direction once the valley had been infilled. This paper provides the first indication of the location of the boundary (Early Pleistocene coastline) between the fluvial Kesgrave Sands and Gravels and the marine equivalent reworked by coastal processes, and demonstrates the way the pre-glacial relief initially controlled patterns of glaciofluvial sedimentation during the early part of the Anglian glaciation. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

3.
J. Rose 《地学学报》1994,6(5):435-443
Central and southern Britain was drained by two main river systems during the larger part of the Early and Middle Pleistocene: the Thames and Bytham rivers. Evidence for these rivers and their Quaternary history is represented by their sediments (the Kesgrave and Bytham Sands and Gravels, respectively), the geomorphological position of the sediments, biostratigraphy and amino acid geochronology. Evidence from the earlier parts of the Early Pleistocene (Tiglian C4b and earlier) indicates low-energy river systems and marine conditions over much of East Anglia. For most of the Early Pleistocene (Tiglian C4c to the Cromerian Complex) the ancestral Thames was the main river with, at its maximal extent, a catchment that extended into Wales, and across East Anglia and what is now the North Sea, to join the ancestral Rhine. During this period, glaciers in the uplands of Wales and periglacial mass movement elsewhere supplied material to the catchment and it was at this time that the bulk of the sorted Quaternary ssediments of lowland Britain were deposited. The Bytham river system has no successor because the landscape now in existence has been fundamentally altered by glacial erosion. This catchment drained most of Midland England and joined the Thames in central East Anglia. Initially, the Bytham river was a tributary of the Thames, but over time it extended its catchment and at the beginning of the 'Cromerian Complex'it became the main river of southern Britain. With the Anglian Glaciation (01 Stage 121, the Bytham river was destroyed and the Thames was diverted to its present route through London.  相似文献   

4.
Recent geological mapping on the Isle of Wight by the British Geological Survey has shown the ‘Plateau Gravel’ to be a mixture of fluvial, solifluction, pedogenic and marine deposits ranging from pre-Anglian to Holocene age. As part of the resurvey of the island, several new exposures of the ‘Plateau Gravel’ between Newport and Downend were examined. A working gravel pit on St George's Down, near Newport, revealed a succession of flint gravels with an inter-bedded sequence of laminated silts. An upper in situ succession of pre-Anglian fluvial gravels caps the plateau, but a second, probably younger suite of gravel-rich sediments is exposed in a quarry on a topographically lower spur. These overlie in situ Clay-with-flints resting on Upper Cretaceous Chalk. These lower sediments are well exposed and display a complex stratigraphy. They consist predominantly of flint gravel, but include a dipping succession of laminated silts and palaeosols preserved in a hollow or small channel feature, intercalated between two distinct soliflucted cold-stage gravel sheets. Palynological and pedological evidence analysis suggests that these laminated silts and sands were deposited under a temperate climate but with frequent episodes of disruption caused by mass-movement and possibly freeze-thaw. The age of these laminated sediments are not known with any certainty but are likely to date to a temperate interval within the Late Pleistocene. The top of the laminated unit is cut by a heavily cryoturbated horizon presumed to be of Devensian age.  相似文献   

5.
Lower Palaeolithic artefacts have been reported at Happisburgh, north Norfolk, in sediments that have been assigned to the late Early Pleistocene, in either marine isotope stage (MIS) 25 or 21, using magnetostratigraphy, biostratigraphy and clast lithology. However, the proposal that these sediments were deposited by the ancestral River Thames is inconsistent both with the established late Early Pleistocene palaeogeography of the region and with the dispositions of the contemporaneous Thames terraces. The Happisburgh deposits were evidently emplaced by a local river, which reworked older sediments that from their lithology had been derived largely from the Bytham River rather than the Thames catchment. Nonetheless, the potential significance of this sedimentary succession for early human dispersal and behaviour requires a conservative assessment of its youngest possible age. Although its basal part is clearly Early Pleistocene, there is nothing to preclude an early Middle Pleistocene age for the overlying sediments that have yielded the artefacts and the mammalian biostratigraphic evidence. It is indeed arguable that these sediments date from the cooling transition at the end of MIS 15c, and are thus younger than the artefact-bearing succession at Pakefield. Pending the availability of additional dating evidence, future discussion of the Happisburgh site should be qualified with respect to any claim for an Early Pleistocene age for the human occupation indicated.  相似文献   

6.
The Riviére Claire on the flank of Montagne Pelée, northern Martinique, displays remarkable selective textural and compositional sorting of pumice pebble and cobble-size material by fluvial processes. Pumice fragments are very well rounded, rather uniform in shape, and show moderate to good size-sorting; gravels are concentrated along channels as natural levee and overbank deposits. The low density of pumice to a considerable degree influences its transport, largely by suspension. Pumice pebble concentrations associated with more poorly sorted, denser volcanic debris record hydraulic equivalency.  相似文献   

7.
《Quaternary Science Reviews》2007,26(22-24):2724-2737
This paper reviews the Pleistocene evolution and human occupation of the River Trent, the major fluvial artery draining Midland Britain, and places it within a modern Quaternary context. In contrast to the sedimentary records of the River Thames and the erstwhile Bytham system, which extend back to the early Pleistocene, present knowledge of the terrace sequence of the Trent, its tributary systems and associated ancestral courses extends back only to the Anglian glaciation (Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 12), although the regional pre-Anglian drainage configuration is demonstrably complex. The post-Anglian sequence is well developed, with major terrace sand and gravel aggradations associated with each subsequent cold stage. Temperate-climate sediments correlating with MIS 7 and 5e have been recorded, although deposits relating to earlier interglacials during MIS 11 and 9 have yet to be identified. Evidence for human occupation in the form of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts has been recorded from terrace sediments correlated with MIS 8 and MIS 4, but the majority of this material is heavily rolled and abraded, suggesting significant reworking from older deposits. This review demonstrates that there is a rich palaeo-environmental record from the Trent but the lack of a high-resolution chronostratgraphic framework raises issues about correlation with other systems.  相似文献   

8.
A summary is given of the geological, faunal and archaeological information obtained during excavations in the Stanton Harcourt Channel Deposits from 1990 to 1995. The channel deposits underlie the ‘cold-climate’ Stanton Harcourt Gravel Member of the Summertown– Radley Terrace Formation. The Channel sediments are attributed to Oxygen Isotope Stage 7, when the Thames was undergoing down-dip migration and eroding the Weymouth Member of the Oxford Clay (Upper Jurassic), the contemporary Jurassic (Corallian) escarpment being near to Stanton Harcourt at that time. Abundant large vertebrate remains have been recovered, mainly from the base of the Channel deposits, where a cobble and boulder bed rests on thin silt or sand horizons or in scour hollows in the clay bedrock. Smaller bones occur throughout the deposits, which are mainly poorly sorted gravels, but especially at erosive horizons. Several palaeolithic artefacts have been found in the same contexts; many of the bones and some of the artefacts appear not to have been transported far. Although the artefacts cannot be linked directly with the bones, a study of them adds to our knowledge of the Middle Pleistocene human settlement of the Upper Thames Valley. It is of interest that mammoth is abundant as part of the interglacial faunal assemblage, and the significance of this is discussed. The environment clearly included substantial areas of open grassland, although there was also some forest in the vicinity. Evidence appears to be accumulating for important faunal and floral differences between particular interglacial events during the British Middle and Late Pleistocene.  相似文献   

9.
The fluviatile Pleistocene of the lower Wye valley, below the Devensian glacial limit near Hereford, consists almost entirely of coarse gravels, situated both above and below the level of the modern flooplain. Those above the floodplain are largely composed of pebbles from the Ordovician and Silurian of east-central Wales. Around Hereford they are associated with well-preserved terraces; further downstream they are fragmentary and have also undergone some displacement. It is suggested that the high-level gravels comprise remants of four distinct aggradational units. Correlations are proposed with the Severn valley Pleistocene sequence, from which it is concluded that the lower Wye gravels represent a series of cold, perhaps glacial, periods ranging in age from pre-Hoxnian to Devension. This confirms the pre-Hoxnian age of fragmentary glacial deposits in northeast Herefordshire. Relations between the gravels and some geomorphological features are discussed, with special attention to abandoned incised meanders.  相似文献   

10.
The Guelph esker (Ontario, Canada) consists of a sinuous, steep-sided and segmented ridge which comprises poorly sorted, matrix-supported sands and gravels. These sands and gravels were probably deposited during the sliding bed stage which has been observed by others in closed-conduit hydraulic experiments. The poor sorting probably resulted from a high concentration of bed-material load in the lower part of a subglacial tunnel, sorting being restricted to that produced by particle collisions. Inclusive graphic standard deviation is characteristically large for the sands and gravels, indicating that virtually all sizes available were in transport. The overall grain size distribution shows a characteristic undulatory shape on arithmetic probability paper, mostly because of selective removal of pebble gravel and granule sizes. This poorly sorted fades is believed to be diagnostic of transport in a subglacial tunnel flowing full of water, and may be used to identify subglacial conditions in other eskers. Deltaic sands and gravels occur downcurrent of the esker and contain a greater diversity of structures; climbing-ripple cross-laminae, parallel laminae and massive structure, deposited in large-scale foresees at the end of a subglacial tunnel. These deltaic sands and gravels grade distally into outwash sands and gravels.  相似文献   

11.
Upper Cenozoic fluvial gravels in the Canberra region are quartz-dominated (>95 vol% quartz), whereas modern bedload sediments contain less than 50 vol% quartz and a range of lithologies that broadly reflect the catchment geology. Potential reasons for the compositional difference include changes in catchment geology, sediment transport distance, post-depositional weathering and regolith history. Breakage of unsound clasts during transport does not explain the difference because sediment transport distances in the Cenozoic were similar to today. Post-depositional weathering of less resistant clasts is ruled out because the Cenozoic gravels are clast-supported and preserve original bedding. During much of the Cenozoic, rainfall was significantly higher than the present, and rainforest species were present in the local and regional vegetation. Weathering regimes were likely very different from today, and deep weathering of catchment lithologies may have favoured the supply of quartz-rich gravelly sediment to the river systems.  相似文献   

12.
The sediments of the upper Swartkops River are almost exclusively gravels and boulder beds derived from the Cretaceous Uitenhage Group and the Paleozoic Cape Supergroup rocks. Many of the cobbles and boulders are second-cycle clasts, the great majority of which are quartzitic in composition. Pebble size and shape were examined and fabric analysis was performed on samples from 22 sites in the study area. Pebble imbrication planes dip consistently upstream at angles of 20? to 50? and pebble long axes generally are aligned normal to the flow direction. Clasts in the braid-plain deposits range from a few millimeters to tens of centimeters (large boulders over a meter in diameter are not uncommon). Pebble roundness ranges from 0.2 to 0.9 (averaging 0.43) and sphericity values range from 0.3 to 0.9 (averaging 0.59). The gravel clasts are angular to well-rounded, but are predominantly subrounded. Zingg diagram plots show a majority of discoidal pebbles, but there is a diversity of shapes reflecting the complex source area from which some resedimented clasts originated.

Channel and bar morphology is complex, with gravel bars often merging laterally and longitudinally with main and secondary channels. Both channels and bars are terraced stepwise downstream and across the braid plain. Bar tops are armored by both small and large clasts, whereas channels may be lined with cobbles or boulders, but often exhibit small pebble lags. Algal mats occur as fresh curtains in all standing pools of water and dried crusty deposits on pebbly substrates in inactive channels.

Imbrication studies demonstrate conclusively that pebble imbrication is the most meaningful indicator of flow direction in a gravel deposit and is far more reliable than rare cross-bedding encountered in bar-top sands, where bedforms often migrate laterally rather than downstream. The Swartkops braid-plain gravels resemble the ancient deposits of the Ventersdorp Contact Reef, both deposits being characterized by boulder-rich gravels, poor clast sorting, resedimented pebbles from a proximal fault-bounded source, and algal mats. Although heavy minerals are lacking in the Swartkops, trapping of fines by algal filaments appears to occur during low-flow conditions.  相似文献   

13.
洞庭盆地中更新世洞庭湖组砾石特征及其意义   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
对位于洞庭盆地安乡凹陷东南部的两护村ZKC1孔中更新世洞庭湖组砾石层进行了粒度和砾态的统计分析。结果表明,砾石的粒度变化反映出2个较大尺度的由大→小的旋回,早旋回由洞庭湖组下段砂砾层组成,晚旋回由洞庭湖组中段上部的砂砾层组成,反映出中更新世早-中期安乡凹陷的两次由慢→快的幕式沉降过程。在上述2个大的粒度旋回之上,叠加有多个更小尺度的砾石粗、细变化,主要与气候干湿的频繁波动有关。洞庭湖组中段顶部砾石的磨圆度明显偏低,反映其沉积时期盆地沉降和周缘隆起区抬升活动的增强。  相似文献   

14.
The recognition of materials and structures which are unrelated to the original floodplain processes of terrace formation is essential to the proper understanding of terrace morphology and stratigraphy. Two groups of processes have been active in modifying the Lower and Middle Pleistocene terraces of the River Thames since their formation: non-fluvial deposition; and structural rearrangement by subsidence associated with solution of the underlying Chalk. Non-fluvial deposits comprise solifluction gravels which are variable in character and may incorporate a range of pre-existing deposits; and brickearths which appear in most cases to be redistributed loess mixed with non-loessic components. The distinction between fluvial and non-fluvial deposits is made using particle size, composition and fabric analysis. Structural rearrangement of terrace sediments has occurred due to subsidence into deep, narrow, steep-sided pipes. Within such pipes, disturbance of primary structures and fabrics is severe. Over a wider area. primary bedding may be inclined towards pipes, and sediments may show evidence of shearing, faulting and brecciation. Interpretative problems arising from post-depositional modification are exemplified.  相似文献   

15.
Multidisciplinary investigations of the infills of steeply-incised buried channels on the coast of Essex, England, provide important insights into late Middle Pleistocene climate and sea-level change and have a direct bearing on the differentiation of MIS 11 and MIS 9 in terrestrial records. New data are presented from Rochford and Burnham-on-Crouch where remnants of two substantial palaeo-channels filled with interglacial sediment can be directly related to the terrace stratigraphy of the Thames. The sediments in both channels accumulated in an estuarine environment early in an interglacial when mixed oak forest was becoming established. Lithological evidence suggests that the interglacial beds post-date the brackish-water infill of an older palaeo-channel ascribed to the Hoxnian and correlated with part of MIS 11, and pre-date terrace gravels (Barling Gravel) ascribed to MIS 8. An MIS 9 attribution is supported by molluscan biostratigraphy, palaeo-salinity and amino-acid racemization data. The relative sea-level record in this area thus includes evidence for two major marine transgressions during MIS 11 and MIS 9, with local maxima of >10 m O.D. Both are associated with sediments that show ‘Hoxnian’ palynological affinities. The wider significance of these findings, and of an intermediate phase of pronounced fluvial incision during MIS 10, is discussed.  相似文献   

16.
东秦岭南洛河中游地区发现的旧石器和黄土堆积   总被引：4，自引：3，他引：1       下载免费PDF全文
对2006～2007年在东秦岭南洛河中游地区河南省卢氏和洛宁两县发现的8处旷野类型旧石器地点的160余件石制品进行了初步研究,并对产出石制品的黄土堆积剖面进行了地层学分析和光释光测年。初步结果表明,南洛河中游地区的旧石器工业很丰富,石制品的加工技术与上游洛南盆地一致,同样采取硬锤直接打击法;加工石制品的原料来自于河流堆积物中的石英岩和石英砾石等;石制品中有相当数量的小型石片和由小型石片二次加工修理而成的工具,还有直接由砾石加工而成的重型工具,如手镐等;除此之外,大型石片以及以大型石片加工而成的重型工具,如重型刮削器也多有所见。由于工作范围和力度的局限,南洛河中游地区目前尚未发现上游洛南盆地旧石器遗址中广泛存在的手斧、三棱手镐、薄刃斧和大型石刀等Acheulian类型两面加工技术生产的工具。新发现的南洛河中游旧石器地点分布在不同时期形成的河流阶地和黄土地层中。地层分析和光释光年代测试表明,南洛河中游地区的黄土堆积至少从中更新世便已经开始,并一直持续到全新世,至少在黄土剖面中S1,S3和S4的3个层位有石器分布;其黄土-古土壤旋回不仅可以用于石制品产出层位的准确定年,还指示了早期人类石器工业演化和人类生存环境变化的过程。  相似文献   

17.
The Early Pleistocene is an important interval in the Quaternary period as a time not only of climatic and environmental change, but also of key events in human evolution. However, knowledge of this period in northwest Europe is hampered by the limited extent of deposits of this age. Westbury Cave in the Mendip Hills of Somerset preserves an understudied example of fossil-bearing Early Pleistocene sediments, with rare potential to inform our understanding of British Early Pleistocene stratigraphy and landscape evolution outside the East Anglian Crag Basin. This study identifies the processes responsible for deposition of the Early Pleistocene Siliceous Member in Westbury Cave, thereby aiding taphonomic and palaeoenvironmental interpretations of associated fossil assemblages. New excavations revealed over ten metres of Siliceous Member stratigraphy, dominated by fine-grained silts/clays with interbedded sands and gravels, interpreted as being deposited within a subterranean lake or flooded conduit with fluvial input. All sediments sampled were reversely magnetised and are assigned to the Matuyama Reversed Chron. Lithological analysis of gravel clasts revealed variable components of durable non-local and non-durable local clasts. Gravels containing the latter are interpreted as distal talus slope deposits, and those lacking non-durable lithologies as stream or flood deposits. However, it remains unclear from available data whether apparently non-local clasts were sourced from long distance or stem from a more local, now denuded catchment. Siliceous Member bio- and magnetostratigraphy suggest that deposition occurred late in the Early Pleistocene, a period apparently otherwise unrepresented in the UK.  相似文献   

18.
The shrinkage of the Lisan Lake (LL) to form the recent Dead Sea (DS) was mainly a result of the reduction of the catchment area from around 157,000 km2 during Late Pleistocene to 43,000 km2 presently. The reduction in the catchment area resulted from the eruption and spread of the basalt flows of Jabal Arab-Druz (JAD), which together with the resulting deposition of thick rock debris and gravels occupied the drainage system. The filling of the pre-basalt drainage system, which used to feed the Dead Sea, with basalts and alluvial sediments blocked the inflows from reaching the Dead Sea. Local base levels along the basalt flow boarders such as Azraq Oasis, Sirhan Basin and Damascus Oasis, and numerous pools and mud flats were created.  相似文献   

19.
岩体破碎成岩块,经不同方式搬运后形成砾石。因此,砾石在世界上分布极为广泛。早就引起了许多地质学家的重视,作了许多研究,积累了丰富的资料[1、2、3、4]。 在漫长的地质年代中,虽然砾石仍能在地层中保持着有规律的空间分布形态,而提供了形成条件的信息,但必然会受到各种地质作用的影响,这些影响也一定会在砾石上反映出来,这就是本文研究的主题。  相似文献   

20.
This paper records the findings at a temporary exposure at Thorpe St Andrew near Norwich, Norfolk, UK in Early and early Middle Pleistocene Crag deposits. The British Geological Survey (BGS) describes the particular formation exposed as Norwich Crag consisting of Early Pleistocene shallow marine sediments. The section shows a succession of sorted sands and gravels overlain by a sandy diamicton. Based on field evidence and clast analysis, the sands and gravels are interpreted as the product of point bar and overbank sedimentation and represent the product of a river cutting into and aggrading within the more widespread shallow marine deposits. Composition of the sediments indicates derivation, primarily from Wroxham Crag Formation, with a contribution from Norwich Crag. The sandy diamicton is interpreted as late Middle Pleistocene Corton Till that is recorded in the area. A distinct pattern of colour changes at the top of the sands and gravels is interpreted as a soil that developed on the fluvial sediments before being overridden by the glacier that deposited the Corton Till. The existence of the fluvial sediments within the regional shallow marine deposits suggests that a fall of sea-level, possibly due to climate cooling, while the elevation of the sediments and the adjacent Crag implies that the site has been uplifted since sedimentation. This is the first observation of terrestrial sediments within the shallow marine Crag. The paper also makes a contribution to understanding the diagenetic processes that give deposits within this region some distinctive colour and sediment patterns.  相似文献   

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