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III.—On the Climate of the Post-Glacial Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

S. V. Wood Jun
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Extract

It has been generally assumed by geologists that the climate of the period which followed the elevation of the Glacial beds was one of gradual amelioration from a rigorous to a mild one. The Rev. O. Fisher some time since, however, in describing certain appearances presented by some superficial sections which he denominated “Trail,” suggested that they were due to a second period of cold, which he regarded as having occurred between 100,000 and 200,000 years back. Without adopting, in all respects, the views of Mr. Fisher, I yet think that the facts, as far as yet known, point to the conditions of climate during the Post-glacial period having been the reverse of what has been generally assumed with respect to them; and I propose here to give some reasons for that idea.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 9 , Issue 94 , April 1872 , pp. 153 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1872

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References

page 153 note 1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxii., p. 553; Geol. Mag., Vol. IV., p. 198.

page 154 note 1 Until the objections submitted by me at p. 92 of Vol. VIII. of this Magazine to any other than a submarine origin for this clay are removed, I assume the existence of such clay on the heights above the Thames Valley as proof of the Glacial sea having covered them.

page 155 note 1 Brought to notice by Mr. Godwin-Austen. See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xiii., p. 55. Like the Hessle, the Sussex Clay contains numerous chalk fragments, but is quite different from chalky Glacial clay.

page 157 note 1 I omit the Mastodon, as we have no living analogue of that animal wherewith to judge of its climatal peculiarities.

page 157 note 2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxiii., p. 108; vol. xxiv., p. 515; vol. xxv., p. 213. The presence of the Megarhine Rhinoceros seems to be the special older feature in the fauna of the Eastern Thames Brickearths.

page 157 note 3 Ibid.

page 157 note 4 Ibid. vol. xxv., p. 217.

page 157 note 5 Ibid. vol. xxiii., p. 394. Geol. Mag., Vol. III., pp. 57, 99, 348, and 398.

page 158 note 1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxiii., p. 292.

page 158 note 2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xix., p. 399.

page 159 note 1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxvii., p. 20.

page 159 note 2 For some examples see Geol. Mag., Vol. III., p. 296.

page 160 note 1 A list of 38 species from this deposit is given by Mr. Godwin-Austen in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xiii., p. 50, and as many more have since been obtained by Mr. Alfred Bell. Mr. Godwin-Austen in the same paper also notices the Mammalian remains.

page 160 note 2 In the paper in vol. xxvii. of Quart. Journ. before referred to, I endeavoured to show that subsequent to the formation of the Thames Brick-earths, and prior to the accumulation of this Sussex molluscan deposit, an isthmus joining Kent to France had come into existence, which divided the Lusitanian connected waters of the South of England from those of the North Sea. The marine shells of the Post-glacial gravels of East Anglia have a more northerly character than those of the Sussex bed, though agreeing with them in belonging all to living species, that with a few exceptions (which occur in contiguous seas) yet survive in British waters.

page 160 note 3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxv., p. 195. See column headed Bracklesham.

page 160 note 4 We get no evidence of this late Post-glacial ice-action over Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, except it be in Mr. Fisher's ‘trail,’ because, as it appears to me, these counties were then all land, having, in common with all England, at a still later or prehistoric period, undergone that subsidence which is indicated by the submerged forests round our coasts.