U series and amino acid dates from Jersey

Understanding of the raised beach and other interglacial sequences in the southern part of the British Isles has been improved through use of the amino acid racemization technique. This method has permitted correlation of these isolated and fragmentary marine deposits1,2which, except for the Portland site, are located around the shores of the Bristol Channel1. By applying this technique with the U-series method, we have obtained a geochronometric date from the ‘8-m’ raised beach of the Belle Hougue Cave, Jersey, Channel Islands. Our results suggest that the 8-m raised beach of the Channel should be correlated with isotope stage 5, and that raised beaches above this altitude in the area may pre-date this stage, and thus also the Ipswichian interglacial which forms part of it.