JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2003) 18(3-4) 227–243 Copyright  2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jqs.762 The Pleistocene rivers of the English Channel region PIERRE ANTOINE, 1 * JEAN-PIERRE COUTARD, 2 PHILIP GIBBARD, 3 BERNARD HALLEGOUET, 4 JEAN-PIERRE LAUTRIDOU 2 and JEAN-CLAUDE OZOUF 2 1 UMR CNRS 8591, Laboratoire de G´ eographie Physique-CNRS, 1 Place Aristide Briand, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France 2 CNRS, UPRES-A 6143, ‘Morphodynamique Continentale et C ˆ oti´ ere’, 24, rue des Tilleuls, 14000 Caen, France 3 Godwin Institute of Quaternary Research, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EN, England 4 Facult´ e des letters Univ. Bret. Occidentale, 20 rue du Quesne, BP 814, 29 285 Brest Cedex, France Antoine, P., Coutard, J.-P., Gibbard, P., Hallegouet, B., Lautridou, J.-P. and Ozouf, J.-C. 2003. The Pleistocene rivers of the English Channel region. J. Quaternary Sci., Vol. 18 pp. 227–243. ISSN 0267-8179. Received 7 January 2002; Revised 21 February 2002; Accepted 1 March 2002 ABSTRACT: The Pleistocene history of river systems that enter the English Channel from northern France and southern England is reviewed. During periods of low sea-level (cold stages) these streams were tributaries of the Channel River. In southern England the largest, the River Solent, is an axial stream that has drained the Hampshire Basin from the Early Pleistocene or late Pliocene. Other streams of southern England may be of similar antiquity but their records are generally short and their sedimentary history have been destroyed, as in northern Brittany, by coastal erosion and valley deepening as a consequence of tectonic uplift. In northern France, the Seine and Somme rivers have very well developed terrace systems recording incision that began at around 1 Ma. The uplift rate, deduced from the study of these terrace systems, is of 55 to 60 m myr −1 since the end of the Early Pleistocene. Generally the facies and sedimentary structures indicate that the bulk of the deposits in these rivers accumulated in braided river environments under periglacial climates in all the area around the Channel. Evolution of the rivers reflects their responses to climatic change, local geological structure and long-term tectonic activity. In this context the Middle Somme valley is characterised by a regular pattern in which incision occurs at the beginning of each glacial period within a general background of uplift. Nevertheless the response of the different rivers to climatic variations, uplift and sea-level changes is complex and variable according to the different parts of the river courses. Copyright  2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Quaternary Science KEYWORDS: English Channel; southern England; northern France; Pleistocene rivers; terraces systems. Introduction The aim of this contribution is to provide a synthetic overview of the various Pleistocene river systems connected to the Channel River from southern England and northern France (Figs 1and 2). The work is based on available data, mainly concerning the geometry and the stratigraphy of the fluvial systems. The longitudinal profiles of all the terrace systems are drawn using the contact between the alluvial sequences and the bedrock as a common reference. The longitudinal profiles of the bedrock surface beneath each of the alluvial sequences are identified on the basis of their height above the basal contact of the alluvial sequence in the modern valley. The study of the main Pleistocene river systems is completed by a short presentation * Correspondence to: Pierre Antoine, UMR CNRS 8591, Laboratoire de G´ eographie Physique-CNRS, 1 Place Aristide Briand, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France. E-mail: Pierre.Antoine@cnrs-bellevue.fr of the stratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental evidence, and of the palaeoclimatic interpretation of the terrace sediments for the main river systems (Solent, Seine and Somme). Finally the influences of tectonics, climate and sea-level changes are discussed in relation to the data provided by the study of the submerged area (G. Lericolais et al., 2003). Presentation of the Pleistocene river systems and terraces Northern Brittany (B.H.) Terrestrial alluvial formations Pleistocene alluvial deposits are not very abundant on the Brittany peninsula because of the position of the watershed. The northern slope is short in comparison to the length of the