Description and implications of valley moraines in upper Eskdale Lake District

Moraine ridges and mounds at several locations in upper Eskdale, in the English Lake District, are mapped and described. Although moraine age has not been constrained by absolute dates, moraine construction must have occurred in either a late stage of the Dimlington Stade (DS) or in the Loch Lomond Stade (LLS). The patterns displayed by the moraine ridges indicate that ice removal from the valley involved active retreat/stillstands and/or readvances, rather than decay in situ. Implications arising from identification and consideration of these moraines are not restricted to Eskdale but extend to other Lake District valleys and testify to a more complex Late Pleistocene glacial history than some recent studies suggest.