So we can use the basal ice of present-day glaciers to tell us about how those glaciers are behaving. Our recent research has suggested that you can extend that idea to find out about ancient glaciers that no longer exist: like the ones that used to cover the UK.

We have found that the proportions of clay and silt in the basal ice control the amount of clay and silt that are deposited in moraines. This means that  we can use the moraines left behind after the glaciers have gone to tell us about the ancient basal ice. This, in turn, allows us to work out what those ancient glaciers were like.