The Raised Beaches and Other Terraces of the Channel Islands

Abstract

Raised beaches and terraces generally are a common feature of the coast scenery of the Channel Islands. An attempt is made here to systematize them and to correlate them with other evidence of old base-levels and, very tentatively, with similar terraces elsewhere. The scattered descriptions in the literature have been brought together and detailed field-work, including measurements, has been carried out in Jersey. The main object of the paper is to give an ordered presentation of the facts as a contribution towards the attempts, now being actively pursued, to co-ordinate the drift deposits of north-western Europe. Any excursion beyond the bare facts is made chiefly in the interests of coherence, and many possible and even obvious theoretical conclusions have been omitted. The history of the subject shows that this does not matter as readers will be able to supply immediately all the ideas that have occurred to the writer and many others besides.