Cromer Ridge is a ridge of old
glacial moraines
A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice she ...
(
terminal moraine
A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...
) that stands next to the coast adjacent to
Cromer
Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is north of Norwich, north-northeast of London and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline.
The local government authorities are Nor ...
,
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Cromer Ridge seems to have been the front line of the ice sheet for some time at the last glaciation, which is shown by the large size of the feature. All the material that was dredged up from the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
was poured out of the glaciers to form a ridge.
Located on the
North Norfolk coast, Cromer Ridge is among the highest land of
East Anglia reaching , and is long. It is characterised by its irregular, undulating, intimate and well-wooded topography and by substantial areas of heather in the west. Small, enclosed arable fields, hedgebanks,
sunken lanes and sparse settlement are also characteristic features of the ridge. The crumbling cliffs at the coast are of glacial sands and gravels with some
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
exposures.
Cromer Ridge was formed during the
Anglian glaciation around 450,000 years ago.
See also
*
Cromerian Stage The Cromerian Stage or Cromerian Complex, also called the Cromerian (german: Cromerium), is a stage in the Pleistocene glacial history of north-western Europe, mostly occurring more than half a million years ago. It is named after the East Anglian t ...
References
External links
BBC Coast
Geology of England
North Norfolk
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