Abstract
During the last glaciation, most of the British Isles and the surrounding continental shelf were covered by the British–Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS). An earlier compilation from the existing literature (BRITICE version 1) assembled the relevant glacial geomorphological evidence into a freely available GIS geodatabase and map (Clark et al. 2004: Boreas 33, 359). New high‐resolution digital elevation models, of the land and seabed, have become available casting the glacial landform record of the British Isles in a new light and highlighting the shortcomings of the V.1 BRITICE compilation. Here we present a wholesale revision of the evidence, onshore and offshore, to produce BRITICE version 2, which now also includes Ireland. All published geomorphological evidence pertinent to the behaviour of the ice sheet is included, up to the census date of December 2015. The revised GIS database contains over 170 000 geospatially referenced and attributed elements – an eightfold increase in information from the previous version. The compiled data include: drumlins, ribbed moraine, crag‐and‐tails, mega‐scale glacial lineations, glacially streamlined bedrock (grooves, roches moutonnées, whalebacks), glacial erratics, eskers, meltwater channels (subglacial, lateral, proglacial and tunnel valleys), moraines, trimlines, cirques, trough‐mouth fans and evidence defining ice‐dammed lakes. The increased volume of features necessitates different map/database products with varying levels of data generalization, namely: (i) an unfiltered GIS database containing all mapping; (ii) a filtered GIS database, resolving data conflicts and with edits to improve geo‐locational accuracy (available as GIS data and PDF maps); and (iii) a cartographically generalized map to provide an overview of the distribution and types of features at the ice‐sheet scale that can be printed at A0 paper size at a 1:1 250 000 scale. All GIS data, the maps (as PDFs) and a bibliography of all published sources are available for download from: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/clark_chris/britice.
Highlights
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The purpose of this paper is to present an updated glacial map and geodatabase of glacial landforms relating to the British– Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS), and to highlight the evidence gathered in the 15 years since the Clark et al (2004) and Evans et al (2005) syntheses
Most glacial landforms in the British Isles, especially those that are depositional rather than erosional, undoubtedly relate to the last ice sheet that covered the area, but it is worth noting that this is a presumption on the basis of them being at the surface and that ice sheets are usually considered to be effective at destroying landforms from previous glaciations
Summary
The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:. An earlier compilation from the existing literature (BRITICE version 1) assembled the relevant glacial geomorphological evidence into a freely available GIS geodatabase and map (Clark et al 2004: Boreas 33, 359). Often the information is spread across so many publications and across many decades of work, whereby interpretative modes often change; this is the Compilation Issue Solving this problem assists in both illuminating the ‘big picture’ and in documenting and pointing to key local-scale work that might otherwise be lost. Evidence of ice-sheet activity could be compiled and made freely available in accessible data formats and maps, and in a manner that promotes (and cites) the value of the individual building blocks of evidence
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