The Recognition and Correlation of High-level Erosion Surfaces in Britain: a Statistical Study

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Abstract
The realization that many of the rocks now visible on the earth's surface represent consolidated marine deposits was one of the fundamental steps in the development of the science of geology. Changes in the relative distribution of land and sea implied thereby have long been recognized also from considerations of land forms alone, such as raised wave-cut platforms and drowned ria coasts. In this country, ancient base-levels of erosion, now elevated, have been described by many authors in districts of diverse topography and geological history. Their recognition has, in general, been by one of two methods of approach. First, there is the identification of plateau-like areas as remnants of a former widespread platform which truncates geological structures at a uniform altitude and corresponds approximately with a former sea-level. The work of Barrow, Clement Reid, Dewey, and others in Cornwall and Devon is a classic example of this line of approach. Secondly, there is the quantitative study of the rejuvenation of rivers due to uplift of the land relative to the sea, and the determination of the older and higher base-levels to which the rivers were formerly graded. The pioneer study of the Towy drainage by Professor O. T. Jones (1924), and later the co-operative labours of members of the Weald Research Committee in South-East England and their extension along the south coast by Messrs. Wooldridge and Kirkaldy (1936) and Mr. J. F. N. Green (1936), exemplify the second method. Quantitative methods of investigating the development of the platforms have, so

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