Thermoluminescence dating of late Devensian loesses in southern England

Abstract

Scattered across southern England are many isolated deposits of loess-like material1. A few, such as that at Pegwell Bay in Kent, are highly calcareous and unweathered but most have been reworked by fluvial or colluvial processes. There is good stratigraphical evidence for a few pre-Devensian loesses, also in Kent, but dating of more recent loess has so far been based on indirect evidence. Much work has been done on the Pegwell Bay loess as it is the most extensive, truly aeolian loessic deposit in Britain. Kerney2 compared the late Devensian deposits in the Isle of Thanet and at Pegwell Bay with similar deposits in Holland and Belgium where radiocarbon dates have been obtained for interstadial deposits. Correlation of the East Kent deposits with these in Northern Europe indicates that the loesses in Kent were formed between 30,000 and 14,000 yr ago. I report here dates for six of the more recent deposits in southern Britain from the Scilly Isles to Kent. The dates have been obtained on the loess itself, using a recently developed thermoluminescence (TL) dating technique3,4, and confirm the ages as being late Devensian.