Evidence of extremely low uplift rates since the Late Wolstonian Substage (MIS 6) from investigations for a new nuclear power station at Bradwell, Essex, England

Ground investigations ahead of a potential new nuclear power station at Bradwell in Essex provide evidence of extremely low uplift rates since the end of the Wolstonian / Saalian Stage. Estuarine deposits dated using amino-acid racemisation to highstands in the Ipswichian and Late Wolstonian Substage (c. MIS 5e and MIS 7) are found at very similar elevations within the same channel form beneath the Holocene salt marsh. This gives a constraint on the minimum age of the last ground displacement. It also has wider implications, suggesting either subsidence or very limited uplift of the Essex coast since either the Moreton Stadial / Drenthe Stadial or later Warthe Stadial (c. MIS 6). This is attributed either to a change in the size of the local river system or to subsidence of the adjacent sedimentary basin due to a pulse of sediment loading or loading from a larger proglacial lake than previously reconstructed.