English Channel | Location, History, & Facts | Britannica

Physiography

The seafloor dips fairly steeply near the coasts but is generally flat and remarkably shallow (especially in relation to nearby land elevations); its greatest depth, 565 feet (172 metres) in the Hurd Deep, is one of a group of anomalous deep, enclosed troughs in the bed of the western channel. The channel has been shaped by the effect upon its rock strata (with their varying degrees of hardness) of such forces as weathering and erosion (when much of the area was dry land), sea-level changes, and contemporary erosion and deposition by marine currents.

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The floor of the western channel generally is 200 to 400 feet deep and is relatively flat and featureless, reflecting fairly uniform rock types, mostly limestone. Harder igneous rocks cause shoals to emerge—as in the case of the Scilly Isles and Channel Islands—and submerged cliffs and narrow depressions provide some additional variety.

In the central channel (150 to 200 feet deep), depths are fairly uniform over chalk outcrops, but alternations of clays and limestones give rise to an undulating terrain, with deeps reaching almost twice the average. A continuation of the Seine River valley system north of the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy complicates the relief forms. Farther east again, the seafloor is smoother and the geology simpler. Depths range from 6 to 160 feet, with such elongated banks as the Varne and the Ridge greatly constricting shipping lanes.

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Because the English Channel, unlike the Irish or North seas, lay beyond the action of Pleistocene glaciers, superficial deposits are either very thin (three feet or less) or entirely absent. They represent a complex reworking of deposits of various ages, and their distribution reflects tidal streams. Where the streams are strong, the seabed is bare except for pebbles; decreasing velocities give rise to sand and gravel ribbons and waves (the latter up to 40 feet thick) and to thick beds of fine-grained deposits in sheltered areas, notably the Gulf of Saint-Malo.