Don't know how much of this is speculation but a great description here:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12244964
Only 8000 years ago, which doesn't sound that long really. Extract:
"It is thought a landslide in Norway triggered one of the biggest tsunamis ever recorded on Earth, when a landlocked sea in the Norwegian trench burst its banks.
The water struck the north-east of Britain with such force it travelled 40km inland, turning low-lying plains into what is now the North Sea, and marshlands to the south into the Channel. Britain became an island nation."
Can you imagine what it must have been like watching that wave head towards you...
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>> tsunamis
Ah. They're "tidal waves".
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>> The water struck the north-east of Britain with such force it travelled 40km inland, turning
>> low-lying plains into what is now the North Sea, and marshlands to the south into
>> the Channel. Britain became an island nation."
Yeah, apparently there is the remains of a forest under the north sea.
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There are all sorts of remains under the North Sea. Mammoth tusks and other odds and ends are regularly trawled up.
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I thought the English channel used to be the Rhine estuary.
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>> I thought the English channel used to be the Rhine estuary.
It did, the north sea was the Rhine basin
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Also, the fact that there was a huge tidal wave doesn't make sense when tied up to "the moment Britain...", which is actually a bit silly, geologically speaking.
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Yes it does. One day we were attached to mainland Europe, the next we were an island. Why is silly to describe it as "the moment"? In geological terms it is a moment, if not less than!
John
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>> One day we were attached to mainland Europe, the next we were
>> an island.
Where does this particularly fascinating piece of information come from?
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You've lost me FT. What are you getting at, what are you declaring to be silly? If a giant tidal wave or tsunami sweeps from what is Norway, across what is now the North Sea and whacks into what is now the North East coast of Britain then, abracadabra, there's the North Sea. "I could have sworn that wasn't there yesterday", said one cave man to the other.
The BBC report says "Anyone standing out on the mud flats at that time would have been dismembered. The speed [of the water] was just so great."
John
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It would have taken a lot longer. See www.physorg.com/news103980956.html and others. Possible future revisions.
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>> Only 8000 years ago, which doesn't sound that long really. Extract:
>>
The followers of three major religions of the UK (Christians, Jews and Muslims) believe the earth was created not too long before (or after) that date.
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Are you thinking of Archbishop Usher and his calculations? He came up with something in the region of 4,000 years ago, though he got it down to an afternoon in October and I'm not joking. So a 100% error there. Sounds about right for religion.... :-)
John
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>> Are you thinking of Archbishop Usher and his calculations?
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Don't know. Some say 6000 years, others say 10,000 years.
Take the average, make it 8,000 years, and it fits the bill perfectly for the creation of Britain as an island. So all those religions in Britain can feel satisfied that their God got it right.
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Ooh, you are being parochial! :-) I think that the calculations you refer to are those for the age of the Earth. Britain / Earth, yeah, same thing. :-)
From Wikipedia;
James Ussher (sometimes spelled Usher) (4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656) was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56. He was a prolific scholar, who most famously published a chronology that purported to establish the time and date of the creation as the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher
John
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I've heard of Roderick Usher.
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Well you would, his house fell down. Nothing to do with you was it? :-)
John
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>> Well you would, his house fell down. Nothing to do with you was it? :-)
>> John
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Came from Lindisfarne.
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>> >> Only 8000 years ago, which doesn't sound that long really. Extract:
>> >>
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>> The followers of three major religions of the UK (Christians, Jews and Muslims) believe the
>> earth was created not too long before (or after) that date.
I suppose what struck me about that figure was that it means there were 'people' around who would have experienced it, rather than just the odd giant lizard you think of when geologists talk about X million years.
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>> I suppose what struck me about that figure was that it means there were 'people'
>> around who would have experienced it
The wave, yes. BTW, I wasn't calling your post "silly" - just the idea in the article pointed out that this caused what it said it caused.
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>> BTW, I wasn't calling your post "silly" - just the idea in
>> the article pointed out that this caused what it said it caused.
Didn't bother me FT. I'm with Tooslow FWIW.
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Eh? Now what's the matter.
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>> Eh? Now what's the matter.
Nothing! I don't understand why you're worried about me (honestly), although thanks for your concern.
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The "general" understanding of the formation of the North sea and Channel is over a substansial period of time, receding ice age/rise in sea level etc. This is the first i`ve heard of a Tsunami!, Think about it! if it had occured there would be a huge debris ridge 40 km in from what was the East coast it struck, where is it? it would be huge! maybe it`s how the Pennines were formed! The area now the North sea bed would have been scoured clean so they wouldn`t be trawling up tusks/teeth etc, and finally if we were still connected to the Northern countries by a low lying plain (now north sea) there wouldn`t have been any north-east area of England to hit. - Rubbish!
Last edited by: devonite on Mon 14 Feb 11 at 15:47
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Maybe. As far as I am concerned it is an interesting idea, not a fact. As it's new it's up for discussion by the experts who will eventually turn to us children and say "it happened this way, here's the evidence". Until then we can speculate.
John
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FT's link is to something that happened between 450,000 and 200,000 years ago. So nothing to do with the poxy post-ice-age flood in the BBC article. Though, interestingly, apparently achieving something very similar.
The BBC article is just plain silly and full of rot.
"Dismembered"? Well, killed one way or another (drowned, ripped to pieces etc.) but probably dismembered after death; so what.
"A landlocked sea burst its banks" my understanding is that the Storegga slide happened under the ocean. my.opera.com/nielsol/blog/2010/10/04/tail-of-storegga-slide
"turning low lying plains into what is now the north sea". This makes no sense at all. A tsunami makes the water level go up, and then it drops again. I can, I suppose, see that the English Channel may well have been carved out by the sheer force of water. I do not believe that water lapping up the extremeties of the area affected would cause a 30' deep sea to arive permanently. Post-glacial isostatic adjustment, combined with a melting land-based ice cap I can believe would have done this.
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Its perfectly feasible for a Tsunami type event to create a new sea. A 30 foot tsunami at high tide in the current north sea, would wash away much of the coastal protection, flooding large area of inland low lying areas. You would have the North sea permanently touching the sides of the A1 in some parts.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 14 Feb 11 at 18:56
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>> Until then we can
>> speculate.
Yes, no one knows exactly what happened. It's funny to see people arguing about it in the comments below the article. I don't think they were actually there when it happened were they? Perhaps we can dig up a woolly mammoth and ask it.
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>> Perhaps we can dig up a woolly mammoth and ask it.
I am sure AC will be along shortly to comment.
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Mapmaker was there, or one of his close relations.
How else would he know that the post-ice age flood had been a poxy one?
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As opposed to the normal sort of flood which isn't?
John
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The moment Britain became an island - FotheringtonTomas
