River Seine..

[john1066]

In prehistoric times when this country was attached to the continent did the Seine flow just south of Lowestoft in Suffolk? I've heard it did!!

[seadogg]

It depends on the actual time period you mean. When England was joined to Europe about 10,000 years ago the Seine would have to flow S.W. while the Rhine would collect the E.Coast rivers running across "Doggerland". As the land between England and the continent bacame Sea The Seine would continue flowing into the English Channel. Prior to 10,000 years ago The North Sea was occupied by an ice sheet. The whole area has been suject to cyclic change during the 4 phases of glaciation.

[DTCwordfan]

no - there was a chalk barrier between Dover and Calais that held back the North Sea and the rivers carved a gorge down the faults between the two now coasts and then effectively this blitzed the rocks between (relatively quickly) so the massive lake drained into the now English Channel. The Seine was to the south of all of this action but would have been a major drainage route into the then inlet/valley.....

[DTCwordfan]

I quote:

The first morphological evidence came to light in 2007 from the bathymetric maps of the English Channel. Dr Sanjeev Gupta at Imperial College London observed that the existence of long grooves of erosion and deep valleys running longitudinally along the bedrock floor fitted with an extraordinary conclusion. It seems that the freshwater lake filled until, like an overflowing bath, it breached the Dover Strait. A catastrophic discharge of water surged at least once and probably twice down the basin between Britain and France, overwhelming the rivers and streams below it, and spreading out across the basin as a megaflood. This massive southwards discharge of meltwaters merged with the river-water from the Seine, Somme and others, to form the ‘Fleuve Manche’ (Channel River) palaeoriver, one of the largest river systems on the European continent.

Further ice ages followed. Each time, as the glaciers receded, sea levels rose and the Channel would continue to be carved out; as glaciers returned, sea levels dropped and the landmass would once more connect Britain to the Continent. A second megaflood seems to have happened 160,000 years ago, only this time the gap at the Dover Strait was enlarged enough that it would never reform: Britain was now an island.

[seadogg]

well put. difficult to know what level to come in at but i enjoyed your lucid explanation. in view of what happened during the gunz mindel riiss and wurm glacial episodes its hard to envisage how
drainage of the seine basin could ever flow anywhere but to the s.w. enjoy dt crossword. sorry about lack of capitals- holding phone!

[seadogg]

Reckon whoever told you got Seine mixed up with Rhine. If so he was right.