Dating the earliest lowland glaciation of eastern England: a pre-MIS 12 early Middle Pleistocene Happisburgh glaciation

This paper outlines the evidence for the Happisburgh Glaciation-the first Middle Pleistocene glaciation of lowland eastern England and the adjacent margins of the North Sea Basin. We propose that this glaciation occurred during a pre-Elsterian/Anglian (MIS 12) cold stage based on evidence of clasts of till, erratics and heavy minerals from the third youngest terrace of the 'pre-glacial' Bytham River in southern Norfolk. The heavy minerals show a progressive increase in glacially sourced materials from the bottom to the top of the Bytham River third terrace sediments. The till clasts are correlated with the extensive deposits of the Happisburgh Formation on the basis of their colour, heavy minerals and particle size properties. Thus, the Happisburgh Glaciation occurred during the accumulation of the Bytham River terrace deposits and prior to MIS 12, when the Bytham River system was destroyed by the Anglian glaciation. In the absence of any geochronology or robust biostratigraphy, the age of the Happisburgh Glaciation is estimated by the synchronisation of the pattern of large-scale river activity with patterns of Milankovitch-forced global climate change. On this basis, and assuming the British Ice Sheet acted in phase with global patterns of ice volume, the Happisburgh Glaciation is considered to have occurred during MIS 16 and be equivalent of the Don Glaciation of eastern Europe. (C) 2004 NERC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.