The glacial history and deposits of a selected part of the alston block

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with a study of the glaciation and glacial deposits of a selected part of the South Tyne and Allendale valleys. The results which are presented in this thesis were obtained both from laboratory analyses of the till sediments and from field observations in an attempt to make the study as integrated as possible. The thesis is divided into four sections. The introductory section is a description of the study area in terms of its physical geography and geology. In order to put the present work into context the history of previous glacial research is also outlined. In section two the glacial sediments and landforms are described and the writer's findings are discussed in the light of the previous work. Section three is a sedimentological study of the till deposits and is the only data of its kind yet available for this part of northern England. Section four, the synthesis, is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the raw data described in the preceding section of this thesis. Two chapters are concerned with a statistical synthesis, while a third is a subjective appraisal of the ice movements of the last glaciation.