continental shelf closer to the sea surface. Over time, the waters shallowed, and the seabed currents became stronger. The last vestiges of the glacial seafloor were scoured by contour currents, which deposited the spoils of an energetic coast on the eroded sediment below. Millennia later coarse sand and shell debris formed a layer of several inches thick. And then on Sunday the 12th July 2015 all changed.

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There was an unfamiliar thud, and then the uncanny sensation of a vibrating tube burrowing into the sediment from above. It cut through the sand in a jiffy, passed the pebbles, and into the soft clays. The tube slid through it like a hot knife through butter. No struggle with the coarse sands lain down by meltwater streams either,the coming three weeks of the cruise. We need this story told in every sector of the British-Irish continental shelf. Only then will we have what we set out for: the complete saga of the Last British-Irish Ice Sheet.

For Transect 3 of BRITICECHRONO, THE Irish Sea East, north from the terrestrial component in Shropshire-Lancashire, much of the remainder will be be dealt with during the marine cruises. The Isle of Man is the clear exception with excellent terrestrial exposure of the Quaternary geology; it is an excellent candidate region for dating the decline of the ISIS. The Isle of Man occupies a position astride successive ice advances through the Irish Sea Basin and records evidence of fluctuations of ice in the Irish Sea basin. The glacial geology of