Cataclysmic flood creates new island

A study by Sanjeev Gupta and Jenny Collier of Imperial College has revealed a deep, sub-marine trench through the English Channel which is believed to have been carved out by cataclysmic floods 400,000 years ago. The sub-marine scouring, identified on sonar images, is thought to have occurred due to overflow of a massive ice-dammed lake in the southern North Sea. It is estimated that the discharge was between 200,000 and 1 million cubic metres per second - this is at least four times as much as peak flow from the 1996 Icelandic jokulhlaup. Prior to this event Britain was connected to the European mainland via a land promontory.