Ice in the North Sea: A One-Time Event

Imagine a time when the central North Sea was covered in ice. A new study using 3D seismic data has revealed that this cold event happened just once during the Early Pleistocene. This was a big deal, as ice sheets stretched all the way from western Norway, covering over 10, 000 square kilometers in the central basin. The ice left behind a thick layer of till, reaching up to 120 meters in places.

But what happened after this ice adventure? Well, for the rest of the Early Pleistocene, the central basin was a different story. Instead of ice, strong along-slope currents scoured the area, creating distinctive elliptical pockmarks and long contour-current furrows. This discovery is important because it helps us understand how ice sheets behaved before and during a critical climate shift known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Plus, it bridges the gap between what we know from land and what we know from the sea about glaciation in northwest Europe.

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