Glacial Geology and Geomorphology

The biogenic records, glacial deposits and landscapes of Ireland contain a rich record of Quaternary climate change. The records vary from long term glacial cycles to millennial and even centennial time scale variability. These glacial and non-glacial events are driven both by both Milankovitch cycles and shorter term climate shifts. Ireland's position on the fringe of Europe in the climatically sensitive north-eastern North Atlantic makes the island an ideal laboratory for identifying terrestrial evidence for climatic signals. Some signals are clearly associated with changes in the heat distributions and fluxes from the ocean and had profound effects on very sensitive ice masses on Ireland. The resulting waxing and waning of the Irish ice sheets resulted in diverse glacial topographies, comprising the world's most important field of drumlinised ribbed moraine. Catastrophic ice sheet disintegration created the sinuous esker ridges and moraines on the lowlands whilst intensive ice erosion carved spectacular valleys into the peripheral mountain groups. Marshall McCabe provides a current and comprehensive history of the regional geological, geomorphological and geochronological evidence used in ice sheet reconstruction. Critically the book documents the dynamic interactions between ice, atmosphere and sea-levels during the last major glacial cycle. As a detailed study of the Quaternary geology and evidence from a specific locale it provides analogous data to be applied in other glacial and post-glacial landscapes around the world. It is also crucial to our understanding of the relationships between ice, oceans and atmosphere as scientists debate the impact of global warming.