Abstract
IN translating the title of this suggestive work we are troubled by the term “diluvial,” which has, we fear, become fixed in German terminology; also by the fact that we have no equivalent for the expressive word “Aufschotterung.” The author refers the formation of the true Schotter, the boulder-beds, to pochs of cold semi-arid climate, when frost acted on a surface free from vegetation. Weathering was then mechanical. Valley-erosion, on the other hand, indicates a humid climate, when vegetation protected the rocks from block-denudation, when weathering was chemical, and when the free flow of water worked havoc with the preceding products of “Aufschotterung.” Herr Soergel shows how even so large a cause as upheaval or subsidence of the land is unlikely to promote regional erosion or aggradation in a network of valleys running in different directions. The tilting or buckling of the land-surface in such a case leads to changes that vary from one district to another. Hence the author sees in the regional features of “diluvial ” times in Europe evidence of repeated climatic change, and he finds support in the animal remains that are associated with deposits formed respectively in epochs of erosion and glacial aggradation. The “monoglacial” view is thus rejected; boulder-beds connected with epochs of erosion are merely local and do not indicate a continuity of the cold conditions that produced the great “Aufschotterungen.”
Die Ursachen der diluvialen Aufschotterung und Erosion.
By W. Soergel. Pp. v + 74. (Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger, 1921.) 18 marks.
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C., G. Die Ursachen der diluvialen Aufschotterung und Erosion . Nature 108, 464 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/108464a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/108464a0