Ice-wedge cast investigations in the British Isles 1849-1949
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26485/BP/1999/38/14Keywords:
relict permafrost, history of studies, progress in interpretationAbstract
Although 1949 was the start of international periglacial research collaboration, during the preceding century, important observations of permafrost related structures were made in the British Isles. Probably the oldest published figure featuring an ice-wedge cast dates from 1848. Later in 1877 a lithograph of an ice-wedge cast in the Fenland area of eastern England was published and from northern Ireland came the first account of gravel dykes' genetically related to freezing. Subsequently, a subterranean erosion mechanism was proposed to explain large wedge-shaped structures at Cambridge. The benchmark study was that of T. T. Paterson who in 1940 made a comparative study of ice-wedges in Baffin Island and the same Cambridge wedge structures. Concurrently, a glacial sedimentological debate stimulated discussion of the first known Scottish ice-wedge casts. Finally relict ice wedge polygons were identified on air photographs.
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