Involutions in the Middle Pleistocene (Anglian) Barham Soil, eastern England: a comparison with thermokarst involutions from arctic Canada

• Published in: Boreas
• Main Authors: MURTON, JULIAN B., WHITEMAN, COLIN A., ALLEN, PETER
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1995
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Crumbling Point; Ice; permafrost; Thermokarst
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3885.1995.tb00779.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1502-3885.1995.tb00779.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1502-3885.1995.tb00779.x

Involutions in the early Anglian Barham Soil at Newney Green, Essex, and Badwell Ash, Suffolk, in eastern England, are attributed to soft‐sediment deformation during an episode of regional thermokarst development. The involutions show a striking resemblance in morphology and size to thermokarst involutions within a palaeo‐thaw layer at Crumbling Point, western arctic Canada. By analogy with the thermokarst involutions, the involutions in the Barham Soil are reinterpreted to have formed by loading during the melting of an ice‐rich layer at the top of Anglian permafrost. This period of thermokarst development may have coincided with an episode of intra‐Anglian climatic amelioration. Reinterpretation of the Barham Soil involutions implies that many other Pleistocene involutions in Britain may have formed during periods of thermokarst development rather than by active‐layer cryoturbation.