Distribution of Shingle in Europe

Within Europe, the occurrence of shingle structures has been documented for Great Britain (Randall 1989, Sneddon and Randall 1993). Géhu (1960 a, b, c, 1991) has described much of the shingle of western France; Bocher (1969) examined the vegetation of Danish shingle and Eklund (1931) gave an account of similar vegetation in southwest Finland. Nordhanger (1940) examined the vegetation of coasts of Norway where an organic matrix was present. The Figure opposite provides an indication of their approximate location.

Figure: Approximate location of shingle beaches and structures in northwest Europe (various sources). Shingle also occurs in scattered localities around the Iberian Peninsula and in the Mediterranean