Does anyone know why there appears to be an underwater river basin off the coast of Ireland?

by No-Contribution-1835

9 comments

  4. They are underwater canyons created by currents down the slope from the higher continental shelf to the sea floor at the bottom.

  5. The continental shelf was all land above water during the ice ages. It was a river basin, but thousands of years ago.

  8. Doggerland, as we exited the last ice age, the sea levels rose and swallowed a lot of land around this area, Ireland and the UK used to be connected to mainland Europe. The Rhine river and the Thames used to flow into one massive river that flowed through what is now the English channel, which then emptied into the Atlantic, presumably further west, past Ireland, at the edge of the continental shelf.

  9. >The Porcupine Seabight can be found in the southwestern offshore portion of Ireland and is part of a series of interconnected basins linked to a failed rift structure associated with the opening of the Northern Atlantic Ocean.

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