The Age of Interglacial Deposits at Swanscombe

Abstract

The interglacial gravel at Swanscombe includes pebbles apparently derived from Shropshire and neighbouring districts; and as some of these occur in the “Plateau Drift” near Oxford, they may have reached the Lower Thames by way of Moreton and Goring Gaps. The earlier of the two boulder clays of Essex and Hertfordshire probably contributed some erratics to the Swanscombe gravels, but the later includes material from North Britain and Scandinavia unknown in the Swanscombe deposits. Therefore the gravels at Swanscombe seem to be intermediate in age between the Lowestoft and Gipping Glaciations of East Anglia, with which the two Essex boulder clays are correlated.