TheRiver Solent is a now-extinctriver which during thePleistocene would have flowed around the area which is now the coastlines ofHampshire and theIsle of Wight in England.
The River Solent was one of three major rivers in central and southern England, together with theProto-Thames andBytham, but unlike the other two it was not destroyed by the extremeAnglian Glaciation around 450,000 years ago.[1] It became extinct after flooding following the end of thelast ice age, becoming submerged and incorporated into theSolent, astrait of theEnglish Channel that sits between the Isle of Wight and Hampshire. The River Solent's source was theRiver Frome, and the River Solent's tributaries, theRiver Test,River Itchen, theHampshire River Avon and theRiver Medina, still survive today. Several towns on both the South Coast and the Isle of Wight are built near features of the River Solent;Cowes andEast Cowes are built around the mouth of the River Medina, which formed due to the flooding of one of the shallow valleys formed by the River Solent.
The areas around the River Solent are, like most of Hampshire, made up ofchalk and Tertiary (mostly Eocene) clays and sands with minor limestones.[2]
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