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More recent past events tend to be better known and of greater interest than distant past events. Figure 6 is plotted on a logarithmic timescale, so that the most recent times are given more space and greater ages are given less and less space.

FIG 6. Three different timescales, plotted to give more space to more recent events.

For the purposes of this book, we can distinguish three overlapping timescales to help us to understand the landscapes of Southern England:

The bedrock timescale (extending from 542 million years ago to about 2 million years ago)

The Ice Age timescale (covering roughly the last 1 million years)

The last 30,000 years timescale

We shall now review each of these, commenting on the sorts of episodes in each that are important in our exploration of Southern England.