The Edge of Memory by Patrick Nunn

Author:Patrick Nunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Figure 5.2 Sea-level changes along the coasts of north-west Europe over the past 10,000 years or so are shown on the left. On the right is shown a selection of locations of compelling stories about sea-level rise from north-west Europe, represented by bars showing the minimum depths at which these stories would be true.

The depth minima on the right of Figure 5.2 are of course estimates – the stories are too vague for anything else – but considered realistic nonetheless. Thus, for example, a submerged town (like Ys) a kilometre or so off the modern coast of the Baie de Douarnenez would today be 15–30m (50–100ft) below sea level. And if Cantre’r Gwaelod existed somewhere between 5 and 20km (3–12 miles) off the modern coast of Cardigan Bay, then it would today lie beneath 10–20m (33–66ft) of water. These kinds of numbers are not intended to be definitive, beyond disputation, but rather realistic approximations of where submerged places may once have been – a necessary preliminary to determining the minimum ages of these stories.

By relating the minimum depths shown on the right of Figure 5.2 to the appropriate sea-level curve on its left, minimum ages for these groups of stories can be calculated. For instance, by drawing horizontal lines from the top and bottom of the depth range for stories from the Baie de Douarnenez to the Brittany sea-level curve, then vertical lines from the points of intersection to the age scale, we can determine that for these stories to be true – to be a distant recollection of something people actually observed here – they must have endured for a minimum of 8,750–10,650 years. Similarly, for the stories from Cardigan Bay to be true, assuming the sea level at the time of observation to have been 10–20m (33–66ft) lower than it is today, they must have been created at least 9,000–10,250 years ago. The full set of dates for these stories is shown in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 Water depths and age ranges for the seven groups of sea-level rise stories from the Atlantic coasts of north-west Europe. Age ranges refer to the most recent time at which the observations of lower-than-present water depths could have been made.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.