| Topic: | Massive Floods made Britain an island -possibly. | |
| Posted by: | Marlene Plimley | |
| Date/Time: | 05/08/07 10:36:00 |
| Found this in the Montreal Gazette: Massive flood may have carved out English Channel - and changed history A huge flood hundreds of thousands of years ago cut Britain off from Europe and turned it into an island, according to a study. Using high-resolution sonar waves, researchers mapped the floor of the English Channel and turned up images of an enormous valley tens of kilometres wide and up to 50 metres deep carved into chalk bedrock. "It showed us for the first time the existence of this huge valley in the centre of the English Channel," said Sanjeev Gupta, a researcher at Imperial College London. Gupta said the flood likely occurred 450,000 to 200,000 years ago when the Rhine and Thames rivers fed a lake in the area now known as the southern North Sea and may have lasted several months. Glaciers blocked the lake to the north and a chalk ridge stretching from Dover to France dammed the water to the south, the researchers said. The flood carved out a giant gap that filled with water when sea levels rose. The researchers said they believe the flooding may have made migration to Britain difficult for early humans. "If it hadn't happened Britain would have remained part of Europe," Gupta said. "It changed the course of British history." © The Gazette (Montreal) 2007 |