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Scientists have found evidence that a land link existing between Europe and Britain 450,000 years ago was damaged and later destroyed:
The UK has now started the formal process of leaving the EU, but scientists say they have evidence of a much earlier "Brexit". They have worked out how a thin strip of land that once connected ancient Britain to Europe was destroyed. The researchers believe a large lake overflowed 450,000 years ago, damaging the land link, then a later flood fully opened the Dover Strait. The scars of these events can be found on the seabed of the English Channel.
The study is published in the journal Nature Communications [open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15101] [DX]. Professor Sanjeev Gupta, who led the study, from Imperial College London, said: "This was really one of the defining events for north west Europe - and certainly the defining event in Britain's history. "This chance geological event, if it hadn't happened, would have meant Britain was always connected to the continent."
The shortest distance across the Dover Strait is currently 33.3 kilometers (20.7 miles).
2007 letter to Nature from some of the same authors: Catastrophic flooding origin of shelf valley systems in the English Channel (DOI: 10.1038/nature06018) (DX)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:08PM (6 children)
Oh jeez, really? Who writes this shit?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:26PM
As usual, journalists. I didn't find mention of "Brexit" in the paper.
So in this case, the culprit is Rebecca Morelle, Science Correspondent, BBC News. Sanjeev Gupta, Jenny S. Collier, et al are off the hook.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:26PM
Apparently Rebecca Morelle does.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:31PM
Brexit was destined!
UKEngland will always move away from Europe![SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:31PM (2 children)
People that have an agenda and need to bend science to make it stick. Geological changes tend to happen regardless of what the people living ontop thinks about it.
(Score: 2) by MrNemesis on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:04PM (1 child)
It's not even news - note the paper is from 2007. Britain (the island[s], cos it's not a country) was connected to mainland europe by land during the last ice age, and there's been varying degrees of hypotheses, theories and (eventually) proof of such for over 100 years. Rising sea levels combined with large erosional flood events as the glaciers melted are what's formed the geography of the current north sea and english channel. There have been many catastrophic flooding events here over the millennia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland [wikipedia.org]
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday April 06 2017, @04:24AM
The summary mentions a "2007 letter to Nature from some of the same authors" but I think the paper in Nature Communications may be new. It's not opening for me now and when it did I didn't note its date.