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North Sea Palaeogeographical Reconstructions for the Last 1 Ma

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North Sea Palaeogeographical Reconstructions for the Last 1 Ma Netherlands Journal of Geosciences —– Geologie en Mijnbouw |93 – 1/2| 7-29| 2014 doi: 10.1017/njg.2014.12 North Sea palaeogeographical reconstructions for the last 1 Ma K.M. Cohen1,2,3,*,P.L.Gibbard4 & H.J.T. Weerts5 1 Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, the Netherlands 2 Department of Applied Geology and Geophysics, Deltares, Unit BGS, Princetonlaan 6, Utrecht 3 Department of Geomodelling, TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands, Princetonlaan 6, Utrecht 4 Quaternary Palaeoenvironments Group, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, United Kingdom 5 Cultural Heritage Agency, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, P.O. Box 1600, 3800 BP Amersfoort, the Netherlands * Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Manuscript received: 3 February 2014, accepted: 2 May 2014 Abstract The landscape evolution of the southern North Sea basin is complex and has left a geographically varying record of marine, lacustrine, fluvial and glacial sedimentation and erosion. Quaternary climatic history, which importantly included glaciation, combined with tectonics gave rise to cyclic and non-cyclic changes of sedimentation and erosion patterns. Large-scale landscape reorganisations left strong imprints in the preserved record, and are important for the detail that palaeogeographical reconstructions for the North Sea area can achieve. In the spirit of the North Sea Prehistory Research and Management Framework (NSPRMF; Peeters et al., 2009), this paper provides background geological information regarding the North Sea. It summarises current stratigraphical and chronological frameworks and provides an overview of sedimentary environments. As we go back in time, the understanding of Quaternary palaeo-environmental evolution in the North Sea basin during the last 1 million years becomes decreasingly accurate, with degree of preservation and accuracy of age control equally important controls. Comparing palaeogeographical reconstructions for the Middle Pleistocene, the last interglacial-glacial cycle and the period following the Last Glacial Maximum illustrates this. More importantly, a series of palaeogeographical maps provide an account of basin-scale landscape change, which provides an overall framework for comparing landscape situations through time. Keywords: palaeogeography, archaeology, southern North Sea, Quaternary Introduction control. The Quaternary record tells a story of dramatic climatic oscillations during the last 1 Ma. Vast expanding and receding What makes palaeogeographical reconstructions of Quaternary ice sheets extended into our study area during at least three landscapes in the North Sea region special is the availability of periods (‘Anglian/Elsterian’, ‘Wolstonian/Saalian’ and ‘Devensian/ a relatively vast and detailed record of rather evenly distributed Weichselian’). Areas even farther north saw glaciation every glacial sedimentary data from a variety of terrestrial and marine half cycle. Various erosion-dominated glacial processes had a nega- settings. With the relatively young age and completeness of tive effect on the survival of palaeolandscapes and strongly influ- the record comes considerable heterogeneity in depositional enced the broader geographical connections to the surrounding environments, which complicates large-scale palaeogeographi- world. Furthermore, climatic oscillations have driven major changes cal reconstruction. As the upper unit in the sedimentary to the physical and biological landscape. These developments have sequence of the North Sea region, the Quaternary has been sub- at times opened up and at times constrained the possibilities of ject to more research than the older, underlying units, particu- human occupation in the Pleistocene and Early Holocene as the larly onshore. The record distilled from this research is not only area cycled repeatedly through stages of sea-level lowstand, more complete and detailed than that of earlier periods, its transgression, highstand and fall (Cohen et al., 2012). It is more architectural relationships are also better constrained by age than likely that consecutive palaeolandscape changes are reflected © Netherlands Journal of Geosciences Foundation 2014 7 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 27 Sep 2021 at 20:37:59, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/njg.2014.12 Netherlands Journal of Geosciences —– Geologie en Mijnbouw 93 – 1/2 | 2014 in the archaeological record of the study area (e.g. Preece & Parfitt, is mirrored between the ocean and ice-core records, thus bear- 2012). ing information on climate as reflected in global sea-level and In an overall setting of continuous Quaternary landscape ice-volume changes. change and spatially changing preservation conditions The 18O/16O ratio is conventionally normalised against (resulting from glaciation impacts superimposed on tecton- a standard sample, resulting in the parameter d18O. High values ics), the archaeological record shows humans to have been of d18O indicate large ice volumes during cold lowstand periods present as a migratory species, evolving rapidly to make opti- known as glacials, and low values signify warm highstand peri- mal use of a wide range of habitats in the North Sea area. ods known as interglacials (Fig. 1). In the standard subdivisions Human evolution from the Early-to-Middle to Late Palaeolithic of d18Orecordsinmarine isotope stages (MIS), interglacials are occurred over the same time span as the glaciation-dominated assigned odd and glacials even numbers. The MIS ages are landscape evolution (e.g. Parfitt et al., 2010; Candy et al., constrained by dated palaeomagnetic reversals and volcanic 2011). In the last 20,000 years, the ameliorating post-glacial tephras, and systematic orbital cyclicity is used to further con- climate and a rising sea jointly set the stage for rapid migra- strain ages between these tie points (e.g. Lourens et al., 1996; tion and changing occupation by Late-Palaeolithic and Meso- Lisiecki & Raymo, 2005). The MIS scheme and its dating serves lithic modern humans. They adjusted to a landscape that as a global target curve to correlate (not equate!) stratigraphic gradually transformed from fully terrestrial to increasingly units from more discontinuous shallow marine, terrestrial and coastal in nature, before being forced out following marine glacial environments too. inundation. The MIS stack provides a globally integrated signal for the For many of the sedimentary environments and ecosystems growth and decay of major ice volumes, with the European ice of the ice ages, modern analogues are flawed at best. The sheets accounting for 15–25% of the global ice-volume vari- original landscapes have undergone significant progressive ability (e.g. Peltier, 2004). The timing and rate at which Euro- geomorphological change, with coastlines and drainage con- pean ice sheets grew and decayed differs slightly from those figurations of the present and last interglacial differing dra- of other ice sheets, notably from the much larger and slower matically from those in earlier times. Nevertheless, some moving one on North America (55–75%). The Scandinavian interglacial settings compare more favourably to each other and British ice sheets reached their maximum extents at than others in terms of landscape configurations, and some 30–25 ka, well before the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) glacial cycles are more similar than others in terms of severity around 21 ka, and were relatively quick to melt (e.g. Sejrup and impact on preservation. To make full palaeo-anthropological et al., 2009; Carlson & Clark, 2012; Hughes et al., 2013). The use of the geological record, palaeolandscape mappers must be explanation for the earlier timing is to be sought in the vicinity thoroughly familiar with stratigraphical and chronological of the North Atlantic and its warm currents, and applies to ear- frameworks, and must have insight into large- and small-scale lier cycles too. geographical changes over the studied time frame. The oldest known presence of humans in northwest Europe This paper provides an overview of the stratigraphic and chrono- dates from the transition of the Early to the Middle Pleistocene, logical frameworks for the last 1 Ma, a state-of-the-art inventory when the Earth’s climatic system saw profound change in its cy- of palaeoenvironmental change and landscape development, and clicity. The latter has become known as the ‘mid-Pleistocene a discussion of the continuity of the record within the context of revolution’ (Berger & Jansen, 1994) or, less prosaically, the palaeogeographical reconstructions. It addresses the information ‘mid-Pleistocene transition’ (Head et al., 2008). In its broadest and ideas incorporated in recent reconstructions for the oldest time definition, this interval extends from about 1.2 Ma to 500 ka, frames in the last 1 Ma, both by intercomparison and by seeking ana- thus spanning considerable time on either side of the interna- logues in well-known Holocene landscapes. tionally defined Early/Middle-Pleistocene boundary at 781 ka (Fig. 1). During the transition, glacial–interglacial cyclicity Climate and tectonics changed from an orbital-obliquity-paced 41-ka rhythm (i.e. rel- atively short glacials and comparatively long interglacials) to Ice ages and marine isotope stages a slower 100-ka rhythm of much
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