The Relic Paleo Landscapes of the Thames Estuary

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Marine Environmental Data & Information Network
Last updated:
10 July 2024
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Summary

"A geological and heritage assessment of the Outer Thames Estuary as part of an MALSF-MEPF Regional Environmental Characterisation project revealed c.15,000 km2 of palaeo-landscapes hypothesised as dating from 600,000 to 720,000 years ago. These deposits lie immediately offshore from the region that has produced the earliest archaeological evidence for the occupation of the British Isles (c. 600,000 to 700,000 years ago). The exceptional level of preservation of this landscape holds great potential for: understanding our earliest archaeological heritage; understanding the broader geological changes which have occurred during several episodes of sea level change; and providing an enhanced context for a number of aggregate licensing areas and other commercial seabed projects. To resolve the true importance of this landscape this, one year, follow-on project aimed to improve the chronology of this very important submerged landscape. In order to establish the chronology of this area the project aimed to collect 30 (<6 m) long vibrocores from carefully chosen locations distributed across this landscape. These sites were identified from the interpretation of new and legacy seismic data collected during the project and provided by the aggregate industry (Resource Management Association). The retrieved sediments would be logged andappropriate materials selected for analysis by a combination of dating techniques (palaeo-secular variation (PSV), amino acid racemization (AAR), electron spin resonance (ESR), optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon dating."

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Additional information

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Added to data.gov.uk
2011-04-07
Access contraints
Not specified
Harvest GUID
25d433b0abc55e71b1bd59fa90404c92
Extent
Latitude: 54.051007° to 50.477606°
Longitude: -0.793632° to -3.491499°
Spatial reference system
WGS84
Dataset reference date
2011-03-08 (publication)
2011-03-08 (creation)
Frequency of update
notPlanned
Responsible party
University of Southampton (custodian, originator)
ISO 19139 resource type
series
Metadata language
eng
Source Metadata
XML
HTML

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