Age of the Irish Sea Glaciation of the Midlands

Abstract

THE red till (or tills) with erratics from the Lake District and south-west Scotland, found in Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire, has been ascribed to what has been called the Irish Sea Glaciation. That more than one ice advance could be represented by similar material has long been recognized, but the southward limit of the Lake District and Scottish boulders lay along a line Church Stretton–Wolverhampton–Burton on Trent, and this “Wolverhampton Line” could be taken as the southernmost extension of the Irish Sea Glacier1. The date of this advance has been variously claimed to be Late-Wurm, Early-Wurm and Riss (Saale). I have ascribed it to the Early-Wurm2,3 and accepted the view of Boulton and Worsley4 that the Wrexham–Barr Hill Moraine was the most southerly extension of the Late-Wurm glaciation as eorroboration of this. Now, as the result of work here—stratigraphy by Mr A. V. Morgan, palaeontology by Dr G. R. Coope and radiocarbon dating by Mr R. E. G. Williams—it can be demonstrated that the advance of the Irish Sea Glacier to the Wolverhampton Line occurred in Late-Wurm times, that is, it probably centred around a date of about 25,000 yr ago.