The glaciers that shaped the landscape of Britain melted 10,000 years ago. The locations of towns and cities are determined by which direction the giant rivers of ice flowed, tourists flock to see the picturesque lakes and hills sculpted by their brute force, and gardeners curse soils with an overabundance of glacial clay.
The ancient ice sheets remind us of their existence out at sea, and which locations are suitable for offshore wind farms. The British Geological Survey's marinegeoscientist, Gareth Carter, has been using underwater imagery to map the land under the North Sea and advise engineers where to site their foundations for the huge Dogger Bank Wind Farm, 80 miles off the north-eastern coast of England.
He says that glaciers are variable, ranging from soft silts and clays deposited in a lake formed by meltwater in front of the melting ice sheet, through to incredibly hard, chaotic and contorted deposits dumped by a departing ice sheet.
Carter and his colleagues are finding themselves in demand more and more as wind farms move to ever deeper waters and rely on innovative anchor technologies to hold floating turbine in place.
