The Channel River was a prehistoric river flowing between England and France during periods of low sea level during the

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

s. Its tributaries included the river

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

in modern-day Netherlands, the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

in modern-day England and other rivers. Over the last 12,000 years rising seas have covered its course, through what is now the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

Formation

Paleogeographers studying the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

period have suggested that 600,000 years ago, although the Channel and the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

were flooded, the Weald-Artois ridge remained as a

land bridge In biogeography, a land bridge is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonize new lands. A land bridge can be created by marine regression, in which sea le ...

between Britain and

Continental Europe Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous mainland of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by som ...

, allowing people, plants and animals to cross. This barrier also separated the

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

s of the rivers, with the Rhine and the Thames forced to flow into the North Sea. A bathymetric study of the morphology of the current Channel floor in 2007 found evidence suggesting that the ridge was eroded by two 'megafloods' between 180,000 and 450,000 years ago. During periods of glaciation the British and the Fennoscandian ice sheets trapped water, preventing it from flowing north, and together with the land bridge to the south formed a glacial lake. The lake grew as the rivers continued to pour into it until it finally breached the southern ridge, creating what the paper called the 'Fleuve Manche', translating to Channel River, flowing through the vast shallow valley of the Channel Basin and into the

Bay of Biscay The Bay of Biscay ( ) is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Point Penmarc'h to the Spanish border, and along the northern coast of Spain, extending westward ...

. This westward-flowing Channel River carried water not only from the rivers that currently enter the Channel, but also from those that now drain into the southern

, among them the

Meuse The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper ...

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

and

Scheldt The Scheldt ( ; ; ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of Netherlands, the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to Old Englis ...

, making it larger than any river in modern-day Europe. The erosion from two such breaches left a significant gap in the ridge, so when the ice melted and the seas rose, water covered the area, cutting Britain off. Since the last ice age, around 12,000 years ago, the current Channel formed, and the Strait of Dover is now a wide gap in the ridge, bordered by cliffs of between high on both the

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

and the

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

sides.

Studies

Unfortunately erosion along the coastline made it difficult to analyse sedimentary deposits, and to get a clear picture of what happened so long ago. This is why a team of Anglo-French scientists studied sedimentary deposits in the Bay of Biscay, where they will have remained undisturbed at the bottom of the sea for thousands of years. Their findings were published in 2009, and added more detail to the process of separation, and concluded that Britain and France were separated by a "super-river" during three periods of glaciation.

References

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External links

River Rhine and Channel River response to late quaternary allogenic forcing: The importance of tectonic setting
Former rivers

Formation

Studies

See also

References

External links