please empty your brain below
Three concise sentences are enough for me to understand the significance of this discovery. A fascinating story.

Petras409 | 03.06.21 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Well. Every day is a school day.

Hats off to Thomas Vincent “Rabbity” Holmes.

Andrew | 03.06.21 - 8:25 a.m. | #

Geology is a fascinating topic, surprisingly difficult. Thank you for making this bit so accessible.

Malcolm of Kent | 03.06.21 - 8:37 a.m. | #

Ice Age was made by Blue Sky Studios, which is a division of 20th Century Animation, not Pixar, who make far superior films in my opinion.

Bruce Tenmile | 03.06.21 - 8:46 a.m. | #

This post is why I love Diamond Geezer!

Pippa | 03.06.21 - 9:08 a.m. | #

I'm very pleased that you persisted to complete this post over a period of fourteen months, A suitably glacial speed for this subject. Bravo.

Dave | 03.06.21 - 9:15 a.m. | #

Just a comment to say that this was interesting.

Still Anon | 03.06.21 - 9:31 a.m. | #

Maybe 'massively oversimplified' but, nonetheless, a wonderful summary of this complicated episode. Thank you for bringing some notable Essex geology out into the open DG. It is fascinating in detail and is hidden in plain view in the landscape, just waiting to be revealed like this. My wife and I are writing a book and give talks and displays on this subject and so we are absolutely delighted to see this morning's post, thank you!

Herbof | 03.06.21 - 9:38 a.m. | #

A stones throw from where I was brought up.In the school holidays we used to play!! on the railway during the day as the push and pull steam train didn’t operate between the peaks.
And we still used to refer to ourselves as living in Essex. Thanks for taking me back DG.

Dave B | 03.06.21 - 9:46 a.m. | #

Glaciers and trains -fab. Thanks DG

Cornish Monkey | 03.06.21 - 9:46 a.m. | #

What a delightful, fascinating and quirky post.

Pedantic of Purley | 03.06.21 - 9:59 a.m. | #

A very informative article and possibly your best so far this year, DG.

milliem | 03.06.21 - 10:48 a.m. | #

which reminds me, i must visit that pedestrian railway crossing in Hanwell/Brentford that Geofftech pointed out recently

always good to read some geology, thank you

ADS | Homepage | 03.06.21 - 10:59 a.m. | #

Thank you DG. Via the link to the londongeopartnership, you have explained something which has intrigued me for many years.
On my daily walk from home to tube station, I pass several garden walls built with overburnt bricks. Due to their irregular shape and appearance, I thought they were lumps of lava but had no idea why they would end up in garden walls.
I know there used to be a brickworks nearby so now understand what the walls were built with and where the materials originated.

Scientist | 03.06.21 - 11:25 a.m. | #

This is one of my favourite posts of recent times on here, DG. Such a random little bit of interesting geography and history.

gooneruk | Homepage | 03.06.21 - 11:34 a.m. | #

Scientist – I have enjoyed looking at London and Essex walls and written about them, e.g. www.erms.org/walls-survey1.html.

Brick clinker walls are a feature of many parts of Victorian London and clinker was much used for front garden walls in the suburban expansion of the 1930s, including at the house where grew up, between Hornchurch and Romford.

The ancient Thames gravel like that at Squirrel's Heath and Hornchurch was also used to build many Norman and Medieval church walls. It all helps with getting into the grain of the geology – flints, clinker, brick and all. And the occasional mammoth.

Herbof | 03.06.21 - 11:56 a.m. | #

Thanks as always for a good read. I am now trying to dredge up memories of geography classes in the early 60s. Your 'geology' commentators would probably know the answer: I seem to remember something about Epping Forest being on an Ice-age terminal moraine, ie where all the the stuff scoured out was dumped when the ice receded. I think Pole Hill, overlooking the Lea Valley, was mentioned as a local example.

g.chingford | 03.06.21 - 12:29 p.m. | #

As a London-based geologist, this post makes me happy :)

For a similarly important geological / transportation site, could I suggest a visit to Gilberts Pit SSSI in Charlton? The deposits exposed there were laid down in a hot tropical climate, back when London was located nearer to the equator. Many major construction projects from the original Thames Tunnel to Crossrail and beyond have had to cope with the variable and difficult ground conditions. So the ability for engineers to see the material up close has been hugely informative.

Minor quibble - dinosaurs and the ice age are separated by a mass extinction and 65 million years.

Geo_rich | 03.06.21 - 1:16 p.m. | #

Nice allignment of apparently disparate points of interest - thankyou, DG!

cau1khead | 03.06.21 - 1:47 p.m. | #

Fascinating stuff. Thanks for making the sciencey bit understandable for me!

Cornish Cockney | 03.06.21 - 2:35 p.m. | #

I am reminded of the school friend who dismissed Canterbury as "it wasn't even glaciated". But I never knew glaciation got this far south.

Man of Kent | 03.06.21 - 4:04 p.m. | #

The ice that came down to Hornchurch, Finchley and St Albans was a huge ice sheet. This dumped its load of 'till' debris (including the Jurassic fossils DG mentioned) all over NW and mid-Essex and N.London. Hornchurch was one of the 'lobes' of the ice-front at its maximum. The till in the Push and Pull railway cutting is full of bits of chalk from further north. That came five cold spells ago; there have been others since but not with such an icy spread in England.

Epping Forest ridge is, from the evidence beneath the soil, a bit of gravel ridge that stuck up out of the ice and so there is no glacial 'till' on the ridge, but there is some around its side. There is no terminal moraine anywhere in Essex, just the spread of chalky till or 'boulder clay'. The Epping ridge is the remains of an even older Thames river bed. The land's been going up slowly since then, hence the steep gravel-topped hills in Essex that tested my cycling efficiency as a youth.

Herbof | 03.06.21 - 4:11 p.m. | #

A Geordie friend moved his family down south but within nine months the gentle rolling hills, presumably a result of meltwater erosion were simply too gentle for him and he relocated wife and mewling kids and himself back up to the glacial drama of the county of Durham.
There's hefts and there's hefts, I suppose.

JP | 04.06.21 - 2:31 a.m. | #

Thanks for all the geology everyone. Its good to 'be' amongst people who also like geology stuff

Cornish Monkey | 04.06.21 - 8:57 a.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy