Ice-sheet Britain
Series Title:- The Orkney Riddle 28/29 Blog Title:- Ice-sheet Britain This is an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of how the topography of Britain was created by the presence of thick ice-sheets on its surface through multiple cold periods, over many millions of years. Summary We, in northern Europe, live in a post-glacial world. Every thing that we see in the geology of the British Isles, all of it with rare exceptions, is the product of geological events that occurred at the end of the last ice age. The glacial periods, as they occurred over the last 150,000 years were short bouts of heavy snow which was allowed to build on the mountains of Britain and Norway. Year on year thick snow built up on the mountains. The height to which these ice sheets formed is said to be 1500 metres. This is a theoretical assessment and may or may not be accurate, but the thickness of ice was certainly hundreds of metres. This sheet of ice, as it perc...