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The 'Weald-Artois Anticline' was a chalk ridge running between what are now the regions of the Weald in southern England and Artois in western France, roughly between the towns of Dover and Calais. The anticline uprose during the Alpine orogeny in the late Oligocene to middle Miocene, eventually to a height of about 180 meters.^[1] To the northeast of the ridge a large proglacial lake, bounded to the north by glaciers, developed as the land under the nascent North Sea subsided. To the southwest, low-lying land connected the island that is now England, Scotland and Wales to continental Europe. Overtopping of this ridge at two separate times resulted in the severing of this peninsular connection. The first glacial lake outburst flood occurred approximately 425,000 years ago, resulting in a waterfall of up to a million cubic meters per second that gouged out the Straits of Dover and flooded the low-lying land. The second, which may have been larger than the first, occurred approximately 225,000 years ago and finally severed the slender peninsula.^[2]

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Notes and references

External links

Notes and references

1. Tertiary Rivers: Neogene (Miocene and Pliocene), Cambridge Quaternary, Cambridge University
2. "The megaflood that made Britain an island" by Quirin Schiermeier, ''Nature, 18 July 2007

External links

★ Dam-busting "megaflood" made Britain an island (New Scientist)