Brief reminder of Part 1 (without mistake ) Great Britain was once a peninsula attached to north-western Europe . As a result of glacial events , then warming and seismic events , a fracture was created in the cliff linking France to Great Britain , creating the narrow channel of the English Channel . Behind a long ridge , where the North Sea used to be , was a lake of icebergs . However , around 450000 , years ago , a series of major floods caused by the melting of the glaciers and almost certainly by the fieding of rivers (the Somme and Seine in France and the Solent in England ) resulted in massive outpourrings of water , causing the lake to overflow with waterfalls up to a hundred metres high . The waterfalls gradually cracked the cret of the dam over a period of a few hundred years . Eventually , the dam gave way and colapsed , causing a gigantic flood which eroded the soil and hollowed out this maritime ‘strait ' These events were folowed by periods of rising sea levels , which filled the chanel with water , creating the English Channel as we know it today . Over the last 8000 , years , sea levels in the British Isles have rose by around 120 metres . This gradual rise has eroded coastlines , created estuaries and pushed parts of the sea inland . A recent study reveal that England , Scotland and Wales , which make up Great Britain , are the result of a triple geological collision . The diversity of landscapes in England can be explained by a combination of geographical , geological and climatic factors . In fact , the different geological formations , shaped over millions of years , have influenced not only the relief but also the vegetation . The climate is oceanic , creating an atmosphere conducive to luxuriant flora , particularly in the western regions where rainfall is more abondant . As a result , England offers a wide variety of iconic landscapes that attract visitors from all over the world . It ' s incredible to imagine that this episode , in a small area between Great Britain and France , was the consequence of the natural forces that have gradually sculpted our planet over the millenia .
