450,000 years ago, Britain had a 'Brexit' once

450,000 years ago, what is now Britain began to separate from mainland Europe. Scientists call this Brexit 1.0.

At the same time as Britain began the process of separating from the European Union (EU), scientists have just published new evidence for the separation of what is now Britain from mainland Europe, a Brexit of creation.

The BBC reported on April 4 that the prevailing theory is that a giant water current weakened and then collapsed the land bridge and then opened the Strait of Dover. Dover is the narrowest part of the English Channel between England and France.

Illustration of the landmass connecting Britain and Europe 450,000 years ago. Photo: Imperial College London.

Traces on the seabed

This hypothesis has been around for a long time, but new evidence for it was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on April 4. "This really was an event that shaped northwestern Europe - and British history," said Sanjeev Gupta, a professor at Imperial College London and the leader of the research team.

“If that hadn't happened, Britain would have always been tied to Europe,” he said.

Half a million years ago, the Earth was going through an Ice Age. What is now Dover (southern England) was connected to mainland Europe (what is now Calais, northern France) by a strip of land.

Just north of this strip of land and south of the North Sea was a large lake that had formed at the edge of the ice sheet that covered most of Europe at the time. Researchers believe that the lake's waters rose suddenly and overflowed the adjacent strip of land.

Map of Europe today, France and England are separated by the 300 km long Strait of Dover.

Evidence of this destruction still lies beneath the English Channel. Decades ago, when engineers surveyed the seabed for the Channel Canal, they discovered large, mysterious holes.

Until now, scientists have speculated that these holes were the result of the lake overflowing. They call these deep holes "craters", created by water flowing 100 meters high from the strip of land and eroding the rock here.

“The craters are now filled with sediment,” said Professor Gupta. “But what’s interesting is that they’re not narrow like mountain ranges or valleys. They’re separate deep craters.”

“And they lie in a line. A series of deep holes stretching from Dover to Calais. They are also very large, 100 metres deep into the rock and ranging from a few hundred metres to several kilometres wide.”

The cause of the sudden overflow of the lake is still unknown. Scientists speculate that a large iceberg fell into the lake and caused the water level to rise suddenly.

A few decades later, the already weakened land bridge collapsed, cutting off Britain from the rest of Europe. "It is possible that an earthquake, which is characteristic of this area to this day, further weakened the bridge," said Professor Jenny Collier, a member of the research team, in the Financial Times.

The separation is not inevitable

The team argues that the collapse of the landmass was not a geologically inevitable event. Were it not for a series of fortuitous geological shifts, the North Sea ice lake could have spilled northwest into the Atlantic. Britain would then have remained connected to continental Europe, much as Denmark is today.

New research suggests that the most important event that led to the first Brexit occurred 450,000 years ago. But the land bridge was not completely destroyed then. Another, more mysterious flood, thought to have occurred 160,000 years ago, completely washed away the geographical connection between modern-day Britain and Europe.

The land that is now Britain then “reunited” with Europe several times during periods of low sea levels, exposing landmasses. However, the landmasses continued to be submerged as the Earth warmed and sea levels rose again.

“The important point is that until 450,000 years ago, the landmass was always above sea level despite mild weather and high sea levels,” said Colliers.

According to Zing.vn