A Cambridge Pleistocene Climate

Abstract

MR. T. T. PATERSON'S demonstration of the ’frost cracks’ in the Travellers’ Rest pit at Cambridge1 affords a valuable clue to a Pleistocene climate of that region. The presence of permanently frozen ground in England within Pleistocene times has been suspected, but proof has been wanting. ’Frost cracks’ in active formation are occupied by wedges of ice and they can only attain a considerable width in ground which remains frozen for many years. E. de K. Leffingwell considered the ice wedges in cracks in northern Alaska to have grown by successive annual increments of a few millimetres and he estimated that the wedges, which are up to three metres across, had taken 500–1,000 years to form2. Some of the Travellers’ Rest fissures are nearly two metres across and they indicate a prolonged period of low temperatures.