Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
E
AST ANGLIA
(Fig. 223) is famous for its spectacular skies, partly because they
often lack the distractions of horizons dominated by mountains or hills. Indeed, one of
the most intriguing features of East Anglian scenery is its general flatness.
The East Anglian Region as a whole shows remarkably little variation in topo-
graphy, being some 200 km from west to east and 150 km from north to south, but with
the highest hill top lying only 256 m above sea level. Furthermore, within the Region
are landscapes such as the East Anglian Fens and the Broads, which are flat to the extent
that traverses of many kilometres often contain no changes in surface elevation of more
than 2 m. These areas represent the extremes of flatness in Southern England.
Why is the landscape of this Region so flat compared with other British regions?
The bedrock and surface-blanket history help us to answer this question.
Bedrock structure and early history
Most cross-sections prepared to represent the Earth's uppermost crust in detail show
very little unless their vertical scale is greatly exaggerated. In Figure 224 we can com-
pare the same cross-section of East Anglia with no exaggeration, and with the vertical
scale exaggerated ten times and 100 times. Exaggeration gives a false impression of the
angles of slopes or tilts in the bedrock, but it does help us to understand the relationships
between different rock units.
