Coastal Peat Beds of the British Isles and North Sea: Presidential Address to the British Ecological Society 1943

Abstract

A survey of plant remains in a large number of coastal peats round the British Isles shows that they record former haloseres and hydroseres. They are proved by pollen-analysis to be of such various ages that the concepts "submerged forest period" and "Neolithic submerged forest period" must be abandoned. Results of analysis of submerged peats from varying depths indicate that a very large eustatic rise in sea-level, which formed the present North Sea, was completed by the end of the English pollen zone VI, in which warmth-loving trees first extended. The last stages of this great trans- gression formed the 25-ft. raised beach in Scotland and N. Ireland. Comparison of pollen-diagrams in sensitive es-tuarine areas containing interdigitating peats and clays, demonstrates that since zone VI there has been a down-tilting of the east of Britain relative to the west. There is some indication that there may have been a small eustatic rise in sea level in Romano-British times. There is not yet means for identifying in Britain the Scandinavian "Littorina beach" or a "Littorina period.".