The Quaternary geology of the British Isles

This editorial accompanies the second of two sets of papers in the Proceedings (the first set appeared in Part 4 of 2009) that arise from the Annual Discussion Meeting of the Quaternary Research Association, co-hosted by the Royal Geographical Society. This collection represents two main categories of paper: on (1) on sand and gravel, several arising from projects funded from the British Government's Aggregates Levy, and (2) glaciation, with a degree of overlap between these. Both categories also include results of PhD research. The first category includes presentation of fluvially-based data from SW England, North Yorkshire, the Trent and the Fen Basin, as well as studies of raised beach deposits in southern England and County Durham. At the boundary between the categories is a paper on a pre-glacial fluvial valley system in the glaciated Dyfi basin, west Wales, and another on the marginal area between the Late Devensian Welsh ice cap and the contemporaneous Irish Sea ice stream, encompassing glacio-fluvial sands and gravels as well as fully glacigenic diamictons. There are also papers on the Woore Moraine, in Shropshire, and the glaciofluvial deposits of the Brampton kame belt, east of Carlisle, Cumbria. Studies at either end of Yorkshire include a paper on the sedimentology and luminescence dating of Glacial Lake Humber deposits, in the central Vale of York, and another that documents deglaciation and the emergence of the rivers in the watershed area between the rivers of this Vale (the Swale–Ure–Ouse system) and the Tees, to the north. The latter is followed up by a third paper on the palaeo-environmental evidence from the middle ‘piedmont’ reaches of these rivers. Two final papers fall outside of these categories. One documents periglacial activity during the Loch Lomond Stadial in south London, revealing significant complexity. The second reviews the engagement of the Quaternary community with the formal education system, with institutions, policy makers, planners and with the public at large, offering examples of good practice and setting out aspirations for continuation of such ‘outreach’ in the future.