Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 03:50:48 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Giant crater may lie under Antarctic ice
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn9268
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

Secrets of a Vanished Landscape: Geologists Examine 5,000-Year-Old 'Fossilized'

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Secrets of a Vanished Landscape: Geologists Examine 5,000-Year-Old 'Fossilized'  (Read 136 times)
0 Members and 19 Guests are viewing this topic.
Tannhäuser
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 1158



« on: August 22, 2010, 03:10:45 am »

Secrets of a Vanished English Landscape: Geologists Examine 5,000-Year-Old 'Fossilized' Landscape

ScienceDaily (Aug. 18, 2010) — A team of scientists led by the University of Leicester has published new research on a fossilised landscape, providing insights into how an ancient environment functioned.

Thousands of years ago the English Fenlands, stretching across what is now Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and north Norfolk was a gigantic coastal swamp, not quite land and not quite sea, but inhabited by Bronze Age settlers who hunted and fished amid its fertile waters.

Over the last two centuries, it has been utterly transformed: drained, ploughed and converted into England's most productive farmland. The whole area has subsided by up to four metres, so that much is now below sea level. As this has happened, a thick surface layer of peat has wasted away -- revealing the treasures of a 5,000-year-old 'fossilised' landscape beneath.

These scientific treasures include ancient human constructions such as at Flag Fen -- and also spectacular, perfectly fossilized ancient watercourses. These fossil rivers and creeks (known locally as 'roddons') have been the focus of a study by Dinah Smith of the Geology Department of the University of Leicester and her colleagues, which has just been published in the Proceedings of the Geologists' Association.

The 'roddons' seem to be the key to understanding how this enormous, ancient landscape functioned. The strata within them are full of tiny delicate fossils, which give clues to the environment around them. The 'roddons' themselves seem to have come to a sudden, perhaps catastrophic end, choked with sediment swept in from the sea. As generations of 'roddons' successively appeared and disappeared, so the whole landscape transformed around them.

Dinah Smith said: "The Fenland roddons provide an eloquent signal of just how precarious environmental conditions are, at the edge of the sea. As climate and sea level are now set to change, it is knowledge of phenomena like these that will help us understand the world of the future."
Email or share this story:
| More

Story Source:

    The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Leicester.

Journal Reference:

   1. Smith, D.M., Zalasiewicz, J.A., Williams, M., Wilkinson, I.P., Redding, M. and Begg, C. Holocene drainage systems of the English Fenland: roddons and their environmental significance. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 2010; DOI: 10.10106/j.pgeola.2010.06.002

Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats:
APA

MLA
University of Leicester (2010, August 18). Secrets of a vanished English landscape: Geologists examine 5,000-year-old 'fossilized' landscape. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 22, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/08/100817143818.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817143818.htm


Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead
Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Tannhäuser
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 1158



« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2010, 03:11:44 am »



Microfossils in the roddon silts. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Leicester)
Report Spam   Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy