Album Geological structures from Earthwatcher

Great Slab

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:49:45 +0000

The Great Slab on Bowfell - a fantastic feature comprised of a tilted bedding surface of water-lain tuff (volcanic ash). I've watched many walkers pass by within yards of this, en-route to the summit cairn (behind the photographer), yet remaining completely unaware of its existence.

Stanage Edge after rain

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Mon, 01 May 2006 07:56:30 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

View NW along Stange Edge. The photo was taken just after a shower had passed over and everything was sparkling wet and clear.

Stanage Edge is an escarpment of Rivelin or Chatsworth Grit (Namurian) in the Peak District National Park, Derbyshire, UK

There is a very low dip to the east (right-hand side) and a very gentle E-W trending synclinal fold axis crosses the Edge in the middle distance.

Valkyrie Pinnacle - a tor on Froggatt Edge

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Fri, 12 May 2006 07:05:13 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

'Valkyrie Pinnacle' - a tor of cross-bedded Chatsworth Grit on Froggatt Edge, overlooking the Derwent Valley. Derbyshire, England.

Where Brookhouse Colliery used to be

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 15:07:39 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

A view of 'Pithouse West' opencast coal site taken on 12th March 1993 looking northwards roughly in the area where Brookhouse Colliery (deep mine) used to be.

The opencast mining was carried out to recover shallow coal from the site of the former colliery: coal too thin and shallow to have been mined by conventional underground methods. The former colliery site also included waste tips, slurry lagoons and coke ovens, all of which were removed and their remains buried deep within the backfill of the opencast site.

The picture shows the Clowne coal seam with the overburden removed, ready for lifting and loading into trucks. The white scar in the middle of the picture is a fault - a natural fracture in the rocks displacing the coal seam down to the right-hand side of the picture.

After the opencast site was finished in the mid-1990s, the site was restored to form part of the Rother Valley Country Park.

Scanned from Kodachrome 64 transparency film.

Kinder Downfall

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 14:41:16 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

A chaotic looking place of gritstone cliffs and boulders where, in wet weather, the Kinder River falls over the western escarpment. When it's windy, a lot of the water blows back up again.

Best viewed large.

Another bit of Burbage Edge

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:11:26 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Cross-bedded Chatsworth Grit.

Burbage Edge view northwards ...

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:12:12 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

.. to the southern extremity of Stanage Edge on the skyline.

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Faulted gritstone scarp on Burbage Edge

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:12:38 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Here's one for the geologists.....
The gritstone scarp in the middle distance is truncated on the right by a fault. The same scarp restarts again in the distance on the left. The fault line runs obliquely between the two scarp features.

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Stanage Edge vertical exaggeration x3

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 09:27:39 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

I've used Photoshop to exaggerate the vertical scale in order to emphasise the gentle folding in this area. Notice how the Edge undulates where the fold axes cross the escarpment.

It makes an interesting effect too!

Woodhouse Rock

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 07:29:22 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Originally posted for the Sheffield Guesswhere Group.
This is the excavation for what is now the A57 dual carriageway Beighton bypass, south-east Sheffield. The rock face in the picture is made of well-jointed Woodhouse Rock, a sandstone unit in the Coal Measures (upper Carboniferous).

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Tor on Higger Tor

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:41:35 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Does what it says on the tin...

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Dirtlow Rake 'open works'

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 08:32:55 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

The photograph is of 'open works' along the Dirtlow Rake mineral vein, between Pin Dale and Cavedale, near Castleton. The vertical slot is where lead miners have removed the vein, from medieval times onwards. Later workings took place underground and there are many old shafts along the length of the vein.

The view is eastwards along the vein. The small 'bump' on the skyline is Win Hill. The village of Hope lies hidden beyond the green fields in the middle distance.

Worms Head causeway, Rhosili, Gower, South Wales.

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:51:58 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Worms Head viewed from the causeway. The Carboniferous Limestone is steeply dipping to the south here and in the distance on Inner Head. There is a raised beach visible above the modern beach on Inner Head.

The Great Slab on Bowfell

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 07:52:23 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

The Great Slab (or Flat Crags) consists almost entirely of a single, tilted bedding plane of water-lain tuff (volcanic 'ash'). Although the main footpath to the top of Bowfell passes close to the Great Slab, many walkers pass by with their noses set on the summit cairn and remain completely unaware of the existence of this amazing feature.

Originally posted as a clue to a Guesswhere UK pic.

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Gwna Mélange on the Lleyn Peninsula, NW Wales

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:31:15 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Originally posted for the Guesswhere UK group.

This distinctive piece of coastline is at Trwyn Maen Melyn, near Aberdaron at the western end the Lleyn Peninsula, NW Wales.

In geological circles, these blobby rocks are famous here. They are part of the Gwna Mélange, a chaotic mass of diverse rock fragments, boulders and rafts, some of them 100s of metres across, all set in a fine-grained schist matrix. The age is now thought to be Cambrian and the mélange is an example of an olistostrome, a rock assemblage thought to represent a huge submarine debris flow (or several debris flows) into a deep ocean trench which existed here at that time.

The Gwna Mélange crops out on much of NW Lleyn, Bardsey Island and over considerable parts of N and W Anglesey.

Zig-Zag folds at Millook Haven

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 19:39:52 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

These spectacular folds are at Millook Haven, near Bude, North Cornwall. The rocks are part of the Upper Carboniferous age Crackington Formation, thinly interbedded sandstones and shales, subsequently deformed into zig-zag folds with near horizontal fold axes as a result of the Variscan orogeny (mountan-building) at the end of the Carboniferous.

More Millook Haven photos:

www.ipernity.com/doc/earthwatcher/album/873390

Thrust fault in Coal Measures at Amroth, Pembrokeshire

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 23:52:56 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Originally posted for the Guesswhere UK group

Thrust fault and related compressional structures in Coal Measures in the cliffs just west of Amroth, Pembrokeshire, west Wales.

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Ladies Cave Anticline

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:12:45 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Just south of Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire.
Scanned from a 35mm transparency, taken with a Zenit 'E' camera.

Manorbier Bay, west Wales

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 08:25:52 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Manorbier Bay, looking west. The wave-cut platform consists of vertically bedded Old Red Sandstone.

Taken from the Pembrokeshire Coast Path at the height of the foot & mouth disease crisis, when only limited sections of the footpath were open.

Cavedale Lava, Castleton, Derbyshire

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 01:25:26 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Originally posted for the Guesswhere UK group: where is Jan and what is she doing?

This is the Cavedale Lava, in the upper part of Cavedale, near Castleton, Derbyshire. Jan is measuring/demonstrating the angles of the hexagonal columnar jointing in the lava flow.

See where this picture was taken. [?]