Eden Stories: Unravelling A Complex Ice Age Landscape

Join us for our free 45 minute webinar, the last in our Eden Stories winter series. We are delighted to have Paul A. Carling delivering a talk unravelling the complexities of a local landscape shaped by glaciation. If you can’t make the date, book a place at the link and we’ll send you a link to a recording of the talk.

Paul A. Carling is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Southampton, a Visiting Professor at Lancaster, UK, and a Visiting Professor at Chengdu University of Technology, China.

The Lune Gorge and the uplands of the southern Shap Fells represent a key area in developing an understanding of the dynamics of the last glaciation. Here ice masses from southern Scotland, the Lake District and the Howgill Fells interacted in the area of the upper Lune valley.

The background to glaciations is introduced and key glacial landforms that help understand ice behaviour are explained. The dispersal pattern of Shap granite boulders moved by the ice is an important tracer of regional ice movements and local ice dynamics.  Early ice flow in the vicinity of the Eden valley and  upper Lune valley was easterly across the Stainmore Gap as far as the east coast of England.

Later the ice moved south for a time into Lancashire before a final ‘last gasp’ movement of ice occurred over the area of the upper Lune valley as far as the Solway and the lower part of the Eden valley.

The talk finishes with a consideration of how we can date these landforms and thus constrain the timing of different phases of the glaciation.