A. Marshall McCabe's research while affiliated with Ulster University and other places

Publications (64)

Article
We report 80 10Be ages on 14 moraines from Irish cirques that show a previously unrecognized signal of at least eight millennialscale fluctuations between 24.5 ± 0.7 ka and 11.0 ± 0.3 ka. Several moraine ages may be correlative with abrupt warming at the onset of the Bølling-Allerød interval (14.7 ka) and the end of the Younger Dryas interval (11.7...
Article
A submillennial ice readvance from upland centres of ice dispersal in west central Scotland into northeastern Ireland post-dates the retreat of lowland Irish ice immediately after the Killard Point Stadial (max. 16.5 cal ka BP). The dimensions of this southerly and westerly ice sheet readvance on the margins of the North Channel are reconstructed f...
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We summarize 121 14C and in-situ cosmogenic (10Be and 36Cl) ages that constrain fluctuations of the Irish Ice Sheet (IIS) since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) that can be linked to abrupt climate changes in the North Atlantic region. These data provide a robust means to date ice-sheet fluctuations because similar-age events can be identified from w...
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The Melting Is in the Details Global sea level rises and falls as ice sheets and glaciers melt and grow, providing an integrated picture of the changes in ice volume but little information about how much individual ice fields are contributing to those variations. Knowing the regional structure of ice variability during glaciations and deglaciations...
Article
Late‐Pleistocene deposits in north County Mayo were deposited in three main glacigenic environments. 1. Drumlins and basal tills were formed when ice moved from the Irish lowlands and local mountain catchments into Donegal Bay. 2. Gilbert‐type deltas accumulated up to 80m I.O.D. on the lowlands and subaqueous moraines formed across minor valleys wh...
Article
A well-preserved moraine on the northern coast of County Donegal, Ireland, has played a critical role in our understanding of the glacial history of this sector of the Irish Ice Sheet (IIS). Because of a lack of numerical dating of the moraine, however, previous interpretations of its age and significance to the glacial history of this region have...
Article
The sedimentology of three sand-cored drumlins in central Ulster. Northern Ireland is described. The sand-cores of the drumlins consist of complex sequences of cohesive sediment gravity forms, grain-flow deposits, turbiditic sands and deltaic sands and gravels, showing complex fades relationships. The bulk of the sediments formed in water-filled ca...
Article
Deglacial sea-level records from NE Ireland between 21 and 11 cal. ka bp record marine transgressions and sensitive lithospheric responses to ice loading. The sawtooth sea-level curve contains four intervals characterized by: (1) strong net uplift, subaerial channelling and a global meltwater pulse (2119 cal. ka bp); (2) ice loading, isostatic depr...
Article
Moraines deposited by the Dundalk Bay ice lobe record two readvances of the Irish Ice Sheet into the northern Irish Sea Basin during the last deglaciation. These readvances overrode and incorporated fossiliferous marine muds from the floor of Dundalk Bay. AMS 14C dates from monospecific microfaunas obtained from these muds indicate that the earlier...
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Accelerator mass spectrometry C-14 ages on monospecific marine microfauna from raised mud record initial deglaciation of the eastern coast of Scotland before 21.0 cal ka bp. Two subsequent ice-margin readvances occurred prior to the Loch Lomond Advance and are identified from ice-contact deposits overlying marine mud. The Lunan Bay Readvance dates...
Article
Accelerator mass spectrometer 14C dating of in situ monospecific marine microfaunas and reworked shells records high relative sea level on the western coast of Ireland between ca. 40 and 19 cal (calibrated) ka, requiring substantial isostatic loading by the Irish ice sheet (IIS) during that interval. Glacial and marine deposits also record a rapid...
Article
Coastal exposures of Late Pleistocene sediments deposited after 19 000 yr BP near Dublin, Ireland, provide a window into the infill of a subglacially-cut tunnel valley. Exposures close to the steeply dipping bedrock wall of the valley show boulder gravels within multi-storey U-shaped channels cut and filled by subglacial meltwaters driven by a high...
Article
Late Pleistocene morainic sequences around Dundalk Bay, eastern Ireland, were deposited in a variety of shallow, glaciomarine environments at the margins of a grounded ice lobe. The deposits are essentially ice-proximal delta-fan and -apron sequences and are divided into two lithofacies associations. Lithofacies association 1 occurs as a series of...
Article
A late Pleistocene morainal bank is sited in a depocentre to the lee of a major rock ridge, near Greystones, in the western Irish Sea Basin. During deglaciation the ridge provided a pinning point during tidewater wastage northwards. Sedimentation patterns and palaeocurrent data show morainal bank growth by discharge from a single basal efflux locat...
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Full-text available
AMS 14C dates of fossiliferous marine mud identify two readvances of the Irish ice sheet from the north and central lowlands of Ireland into the northern Irish Sea Basin during the Killard Point Stadial at approximately 16.5 cal ka, with subsequent deglaciation occurring by ~15.0 - 15.5 cal ka. Killard Point Stadial moraines have been mapped elsewh...
Article
Sedimentary sequences deposited by the decaying marine margin of the British Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) record isostatic depression and successive ice sheet retreat towards centres of ice dispersion. Radiocarbon dating by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) of in situ marine microfaunas that are commonly associated with these sequences constrain the ti...
Article
A literature survey and data from recent investigations are used to reconstruct ice limits in Ireland during the last (Midlandian) and penultimate (Munsterian) cold periods which are correlated with Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 2–5d (Weichselian) and 6–8 (Saalian) respectively. Evidence for Munsterian ice limits and flow directions is equivocal and...
Article
Organic-rich deposits, uncovered during overburden removal from mantled gypsum karst at Knocknacran opencast gypsum mine, Co. Monaghan, are the best candidate to date for a last interglacial record in Ireland. The two till and organic-rich deposits (preserved at different quarry elevations) were emplaced on to a Tertiary dolerite surface during hig...
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Evidence from the Irish Sea basin supports the existence of an abrupt rise in sea level (meltwater pulse) at 19,000 years before the present (B.P.). Climate records indicate a large reduction in the strength of North Atlantic Deep Water formation and attendant cooling of the North Atlantic at this time, indicating a source of the meltwater pulse fr...
Data
Evidence from the Irish Sea basin supports the existence of an abrupt rise in sea level (meltwater pulse) at 19,000 years before the present (B.P.). Climate records indicate a large reduction in the strength of North Atlantic Deep Water formation and attendant cooling of the North Atlantic at this time, indicating a source of the meltwater pulse fr...
Article
In the north of Ireland ice advanced northwards onto the continental shelf from inland centres of dispersion at the last glacial maximum. We constrain the timing of three subsequent events by accelerator mass spectrometry C-14 dating of marine microfaunas from muds at Corvish, County Donegal. Early and rapid deglaciation of the continental shelf of...
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Understanding the history of the British and Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has been advanced by new approaches, in particular, by cosmogenic nuclide surface-exposure dating, aminostratigraphy of ‘shelly’ glacial deposits, AMS radiocarbon dating, and the evidence from continental margin marine cores, all of which supersede...
Article
Glaciofluvial landforms in Northern Ireland are important resource bodies for sand and gravel aggregate, and also form integrated geomorphic assemblages which have scenic and aesthetic importance in the landscape. Determining the overall «value» of sand and gravel features in economic and landscape terms involves making assumptions about their geot...
Article
Satellite imagery is a useful tool to assess large-scale (>10 ³ km ² ) geological patterns. Satellite imagery of north central Ireland shows cross-cut and overprinted subglacial bedform patterns. Bedform lineations, supported by sedimentary evidence, are used to reconstruct four ice-flow stages (named A-D) during the termination of the last (Devens...
Article
In eastern Ireland, subglacial bedforms including drumlins and Rogen moraines were modified by headward erosion along two ice streams which had over-lapping flow tracks. The ice streams, which had tidewater termini, are dated by geochronometric and morphostratigraphic methods to <15.0 14C kyr BP (Castleblaney ice stream) and ∼13.814C kyr BP (Armagh...
Article
Millennial-scale variability in the flux of ice-rafted detritus to North Atlantic sediments during the last glacial period has been interpreted to reflect a climate-forced increase in the discharge of icebergs from ice-sheet margins surrounding the northern North Atlantic Ocean. But the relationship between ice-sheet variability and climate change...
Article
Millennial-scale variability in the flux of ice-rafted detritus to North Atlantic sediments during the last glacial period has been interpreted to reflect a climate-forced increase in the discharge of icebergs from ice-sheet margins surrounding the northern North Atlantic Ocean1. But the relationship between ice-sheet variability and climate change...
Article
In the Omagh Basin, north central Ireland, subglacial diamict ridges lie transverse to southwestward Late Devensian (ca. 23–13 ka) ice flow. These ridges (0.5–2.5 km long, 100–450 m wide, 15–35 m high), are similar morphologically to Rogen moraines, which have not been described previously from the British Isles. The crests of some transverse ridge...
Article
In the Omagh Basin, north central Ireland, subglacial diamict ridges lie transverse to southwestward Late Devensian (ca. 23–13 ka) ice flow. These ridges (0.5–2.5 km long, 100–450 m wide, 15–35 m high), are similar morphologically to Rogen moraines, which have not been described previously from the British Isles. The crests of some transverse ridge...
Article
Numerical model predictions of low Late Devensian sea levels around Britain are inconsistent with dated sea-level indicators contained in the geological record. Stratigraphies from the western Irish Sea Basin record high sea levels throughout the last deglacial cycle (21-13 ka BP) and onshore ice-marginal glaciomarine and marine sedimentation. Sedi...
Article
Satellite imagery of Donegal Bay, northwestern Ireland, reveals two streamlined subglacial bedform sets produced during the late Devensian glaciation (ca. 22,000–15,000 yrs B.P.). The first bedform set trends northeast-southwest and records fast ice flow from inland ice domes onto the eastern Atlantic continental shelf. The second bedform set, tren...
Article
In northern Britain glaciotectonically thickened sediment piles represent the sediment Bur transferred to ice margins by phases of fast ice Bow and drumlin streamlining during the last deglacial cycle. Radiocarbon dating of marine faunas within deglacial muds age-constrain phases of drumlinisation (shaping) to between 19 and 14.5 ka sp. Individual...
Article
Late Pleistocene sequences around Dundalk Bay, eastern Ireland, record glaciomarine sedimentation near the margin of a grounded ice lobe around 15 ka BP. A coastal exposure at Cooley Point consists of four major facies deposited outside this ice limit. (1) A basal mud facies deposited from sediment plumes accumulated following the initial ice margi...
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Full-text available
Amino acid analyses of marine mollusc valves show that the Basement Till of Holderness, Yorkshire, is of Late Devensian age (ca. 20,000 BP) and not pre-Ipswichian (>125,000 BP) as is traditionally supposed. Together with the overlying Skipsea and Withernsea Tills the Basement Till is argued to be a ‘deformation till’ resulting from the repeated ons...
Article
During drumlinisation, brecciated bedrock was sheared over the proximal end of a Late Pleistocene drumlin at Kanrawer, western Ireland. High effective water pressures generated by shearing at the ice/substrate interface during this event created a marked proximal-to-distal hydrostatic gradient affecting about 60% of the diamict which forms most of...
Article
Field relationships between a subglacial lake fill from the Enniskerry basin, eastern Ireland, provide evidence for dynamic links between the sedimentary fill, regional subglacial meltwater flow and regional ice dynamics. The basin fill (6–7 km2) forms an integral part of an extensive (30 km) subglacial meltwater system which developed parallel to...
Article
This introduction provides an overview of research presented at the Symposium on Subglacial Processes, Sediments and Landforms held at the University of Ulster, July 1992. Particular attention is focused on new developments in understanding the subglacial environment and elaboration of current controversies concerning the formation of subglacial la...
Article
At Portballintrae, Northern Ireland, a well-preserved emergent facies sequence formed around 17 kyr B.P. as the Late Devensian ice sheet withdrew from the continental shelf. Three main lithofacies assemblages are recognised: (1) At the base of the sequence a massive muddy diamict was formed by resedimentation of an unstable sedimentary apron deposi...
Article
The coastal margins and mountainous core of County Donegal, Republic of Ireland have been areally scoured and deeply-eroded along structural lineaments by major Late Devensian ice streams which moved generally westwards onto the continental shelf. A raised glaciomarine sequence is selectively preserved along a gully at Malin Beg and comprises mud/m...
Article
This paper records the find of a reworked ball of detrital peat that was glacially eroded from terrestrial deposits located to the east or northeast, and subsequently became entombed within a complex deltaic deposit, which was associated with a major glacial efflux venting into standing water during the Late Devensian (Midlandian). The pollen conte...
Article
The Irish drumlin bell comprises a wide morphological range of subglacial bedforms which are best developed in lowland zones located mainly in northern and western sectors of the island. Stratigraphic evidence suggests that drumlinisation occurred around 17ka B.P. in response to fast ice flow from major centres of inland ice dispersion onto the con...
Article
Our purpose is to illustrate typical glaciomarine sequences which may represent depositional conditions recorded elsewhere in Britain. It should be noted that the interpretation of several of these sites remains controversial. Our data is, so far, limited to the western (Irish) and central (Isle of Man) portions of the basin but clearly has major r...
Article
Late Devensian sedimentation (ca. 18 ka B.P.) on the coastal margins of the Irish Sea Basin occurred in shallow-water glaciomarine environments around retreating tidewater ice margins. High relative sea levels were the result of glacioisostatic crustal depression around the periphery of the last British ice sheet. At Skerries, in east central Irela...
Article
The Late Devensian (<20 ka BP) glacial geology of the Irish Sea Basin (4000 km²) is an event stratigraphy recording the entry of marine waters into a glacio-isostatically-depressed basin, and the rapid retreat of the Irish Sea Glacier as a tidewater ice margin. Marine limits occur up to 140 m O.D. Across much of the central basin, the ice margin wa...
Article
In East Anglia, the mid-Pleistocene ‘North Sea Drifts’ extend over some 1500 km2 of the coastal zone of North Norfolk. They are the oldest Pleistocene glacial sequences exposed in Britain, deposited during the Anglian Glaciation (ca. 450 ka BP?). Laminated and stratified pebbly mud (diamict) facies of the North Sea Drifts are widely regarded as the...
Article
Facies modelling of the internal structure of drumlins has resulted in recognition of five major facies associations within the Irish drumlin belt. The facies associations are linked with a sequence of depositional events during the last deglacial phase (ca. 20-16 ka BP). Drumlin sediments were formed by basal till deposition, subglacial fluvial-la...
Article
An extensive Late Pleistocene delta body, related to a water plane at 100 m above sea level, is exposed in the Upper Carey Valley, Northern Ireland. Exposures along the modern river show a lowermost facies association, of massive diamict and poorly-sorted gravel deposited as sediment gravity flows, overlain by a gravelly foreset and topset facies a...
Article
A thick late Pleistocene sequence, comprising multiple beds of massive diamict facies resting on outwash gravels, occurs along the Bow River, near Banff, Alberta. Diamicts have a simple sheet-like geometry which dip downvalley at between 5° and 10°, with largely conformable bedding contacts. The sediments are strongly bimodal in texture, consisting...
Article
Quaternary stratigraphic studies in Ireland have been based largely on lithostratigraphy. The division of complex sedimentary sequences into the traditional framework of Munsterian and Midlandian events has created a series of stratigraphic scenarios which cannot be fully substantiated either by biostratigraphy or by facies basin analysis. Many of...
Article
Inter-till sand layers appear to represent deposits associated with high-energy flood sedimentation, and are interpreted as the end product of subglacial sheet wash or sheet flood sedimentation. It seems likely that a continuum exists between subglacial meltout tills and cohesive debris flow deposits. -K.Clayton
Article
The following events have been identified from a complex sequence of Midlandian (Devensian) sediments recently exposed at Aghnadarragh, County Antrim: (1) A lower till interpreted as Early Midlandian was deposited by a major lowland ice sheet which moved south-eastwards from central Ulster across the Lough Neagh depression. (2) Deglacial conditions...
Article
Lithofacies variability, lithofacies relationships, and sedimentary structures indicate that well-exposed Late Pleistocene glaciogenic sequences in S County Down, Northern Ireland formed in subaqueous environments. Regional considerations of ice-flow patterns and isostatic depression indicate that the sediments accumulated in a glaciomarine basin....
Article
Spindle- and parabolic-shaped drumlins examined at fifty-five localities in northern Ireland possess stratification sequences on their lee-side flanks. These forms lack the distinctive steep stoss- and tapering lee-ends of classical drumlins and tend to occur in linear zones transverse to late Pleistocene ice-flow. In most cases (90 per cent) the s...
Article
The Killard Point moraine formed when Late Pleistocene ice grounded on the isostatically depressed coastal lowlands of County Down, Northern Ireland, at a time of relatively high sea level. The moraine consists of three major lithologic associations which prograded for about 1 km from the ice-grounding zone into a glaciomarine environment. Sequence...

Citations

... Glacial landforms deposited in the Late Pleistocene potentially continued to evolve for some time during the Early Holocene, as observed in Carrawaystick cirque (Kelly's Lough) beneath Corrigasleggaun (794 m) in the Wicklow Mountains. Early Holocene 10 Be exposure ages from an inner cirque moraine (n 5 2; c.9.6 ka; Barth et al., 2018) indicate a c.1À2 ka period of moraine stabilisation following initial ice-free conditions (n 5 3; c.11.7 ka), consistent with wider evidence from unconsolidated glacial landforms (Putkonen and Swanson, 2003;Briner et al., 2005;Dortch et al., 2010). Other landscape elements may have adjusted even more rapidly to nonglacial conditions (10 1 À10 2 years; Ballantyne, 2002), as indicated by low rates of rockfall (Ballantyne and Kirkbride, 1987;Ballantyne and Harris, 1994) and rock slope failure activity in the Holocene when compared to the Late-glacial period (Ballantyne et al., 2014). ...
... Up-ice of the onset zone at Lake Rogen, the patchy distribution of streamlined landforms suggests that sliding was restricted to slippery spots. These patterns, together with the wider spacings of ribbed moraines ridges down-ice, indicate significant basal shearing gradients and extensional ice flow towards the west (Finlayson & Bradwell, 2008;Knight & McCabe, 1997). ...
... In comparison with other Pleistocene deposits containing R. globulifera, the environment can be characterized as glaciomarine, neritic, nearshore, estuarine with reduced salinities at 0.5-2.5°C (McCabe & Clark 1998). Since this reddish-grey clay with its unique fauna is widely distributed in NE Germany we here propose the name Roundstonia clay. ...
... The first of these was from its short-lived advance into the Celtic Sea and the second from the northern most part of the North Sea losing connection with the FIS in this region (Bradwell et al., 2019;Chiverrell et al., 2013). The ice sheet rapidly retreated northward across southern Ireland, leaving much of the region deglaciated (Barth et al., 2016;Ó Cofaigh et al., 2012). The exception was the Kerry-Cork region which was covered by an isolated ice cap, the Kerry-Cork Ice Cap ( Figure 1C) until its disappearance ca. ...
... The fact that ice is now known to have completely covered Ireland in the LGC does raise doubts about the presence of surface glacial features relating to this penultimate glacial cycle. In terms of deposits, it is likely that deposits previously interpreted Munsterian are in fact Midlandian in age (Warren, 1985;Eyles and McCabe, 1991;Coxon 1993). ...
... In particular, this reconstruction showed that, after a period of ice retreat, the remaining ice masses readvanced during what Synge (1969) referred to as the Drumlin Readvance, providing the first evidence of a dynamic ice sheet that experienced substantial changes in ice flow. Subsequent work documented further evidence for large-scale changes in ice flow during the last deglaciation , and detailed stratigraphic and geochronologic investigations documented widespread fluctuations of the IIS margin that corresponded to North Atlantic abrupt climate changes (Bowen et al., 1996(Bowen et al., , 2002McCabe and Clark, 1998;McCabe et al., 2005McCabe et al., , 2007bClark et al., 2009a;Clark et al., 2009b). ...
... The occurrence of undeformed stratified sediments in 713 drumlins has long been recognised (section 3.5) and a large body of work has drawn 714 attention to their presence, specifically at the lee-side of drumlins (e.g. Dardis and 715McCabe, 1983;Dardis et al., 1984;Dardis, 1987;Dardis and McCabe, 1987; Hanvey, 716 1989 Hanvey, 716 , 1992;Dardis and Hanvey, 1994;Fisher and Spooner, 1994). 717Investigating a relatively large sample of drumlins (55 in total) compared to most 718 studies,Dardis et al. (1984) describe several lee-side stratified sequences, see 719 example in ...
... It was typically dull, with thicknesses varying from 10 to 25 cm. The peat beds suggested that the plant sedimentation occurred rapidly in humid paleoclimate (e.g., McCabe et al., 1984;McCabe, 2009). This facies might also derive from a back swamp with persistent, slow-receding, moderate drainage, and plenty of vegetation (Diessel, 1992). ...
... Nonetheless, studies indicate climatic transition and enhanced period of sediment reworking. The studies were further supported by sedimentary transformations through fluvial activity and slope processes for shorter time scale (Jackson et al. 1982;Eyles et al. 1988;Harrison 1991;Wright 1991). The relevance of such paraglacial processes in deciphering the post-glacial climatic changes is obviously the objective of geoscientists to quantify the post glacial rapid palaeoclimatic changes. ...
... cal a BP (McCabe and Clark, 1998;Ballantyne and Ó Cofaigh, 2017)] and (ii) the East Antrim Coastal Readvance of Scottish Ice [occurring either at c. 16.5k cal a BP (Finlayson et al., 2014) or c. 15.6-15.0k cal a BP (McCabe and Williams, 2012)]. The latter shaped much of the drumlinized landscape. ...