Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T15:49:22.036Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Testing the climatic significance of dropstones: an example from southeast Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Matthew R. Bennett ,
Peter Doyle ,
Anne E. Mather  and
Joanne L. Woodfin
Matthew R. Bennett
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences, University of Greenwich, Wapping Campus, Brewhouse Lane, Wapping, London, E1 9NU, UK
Peter Doyle
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences, University of Greenwich, Wapping Campus, Brewhouse Lane, Wapping, London, E1 9NU, UK
Anne E. Mather
Affiliation:
Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drake's Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA, UK
Joanne L. Woodfin
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences, University of Greenwich, Wapping Campus, Brewhouse Lane, Wapping, London, E1 9NU, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Dropstones are clasts which pose a hydrodynamic paradox or which have an exotic lithology with uncertain provenance. Dropstones are usually associated with glacial processes and have recently been used to substantiate the presence of cool climatic phases in the geological record. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate, using an example from southeast Spain, that dropstones can be unreliable palaeoclimatic indicators, and that greater care is required in their interpretation.

Type
Rapid Communications
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 131 , Issue 6 , November 1994 , pp. 845 - 848
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Emery, K. O., 1965. Organic transportation of marine sediments. In The Sea (ed. Hill, M. N.), pp. 776–93. London, New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Emery, K. O., & Tschudy, R. H., 1941. Transportation of rock by kelp. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 52, 855–62.Google Scholar
Frakes, L. A., & Francis, J. E., 1988. A guide to Phanerozoic cold polar climates from high-latitude ice rafting in the Cretaceous. Nature 333, 547–9.Google Scholar
Frakes, L. A., Francis, J. E., & Syktus, J. I., 1992. Climate Modes of the Phanerozoic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 274 pp.Google Scholar
Frakes, L. A., & Krassay, A. A., 1992. Discovery of probable ice-rafting in the Late Mesozoic of the Northern Territory and Queensland. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 39, 115–19.Google Scholar
Gilbert, R., 1984. The movement of gravel by the alga Fucus vesiculosus (L.) on an arctic intertidal flat. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 54, 463–8.Google Scholar
Huggett, Q. J., & Kidd, R. B., 1983/1984. Identification of icerafted and other exotic materials in deep-sea dredge hauls. Geo-marine Letters 3, 23–9.Google Scholar
Jolliffe, I. P., 1989. The rafting of shingle under the agency of seaweeds. Progress in Underwater Science 13, 65–78.Google Scholar
Mather, A. E., & Harvey, A. M., 1994. Controls on drainage evolution in the Sorbas Basin, SE Spain. In Mediterranean Quaternary River Environments (eds Lewin, J., Macklin, M., & Woodward, J.), in press. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.Google Scholar
Spjeldnaes, N., 1981. Ice-rafting, an indication of glaciation ? Science 214, 687–8.Google Scholar
Van Morkhovan, F. P. C. M., 1962. Post-Palaeozoic Ostracoda. London: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Welles, S. P., & Bump, J. D., 1949. A new elasmosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of South Dakota. Journal of Paleontology 23, 521.Google Scholar
Woodborne, M. W., Rogers, J., & Jarman, N., 1989. The geological significance of kelp-rafted rock along the West coast of South Africa. Geo-marine Letters 9, 109–18.Google Scholar