|
The Geology of the United Kingdom is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the country. This varied geology has also meant that the country has been an important source for the formation of many geological concepts. Download high resolution version (1036x1614, 368 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Geography of the United Kingdom Geology of the United Kingdom Talk:Geography of the United Kingdom Southern England Chalk Formation Categories: Author died more than 100 years ago public domain images | NowCommons ...
Download high resolution version (1036x1614, 368 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Geography of the United Kingdom Geology of the United Kingdom Talk:Geography of the United Kingdom Southern England Chalk Formation Categories: Author died more than 100 years ago public domain images | NowCommons ...
Introduction
Seismographical research shows that the crust of the Earth below the United Kingdom is between 27 and 35 km (17 to 22 miles) thick. The oldest rocks are found at the surface in north west Scotland and are more than half as old as the planet. They are thought to underlie much of the UK (although boreholes have only penetrated the first few km), but next appear extensively at the surface in Brittany and the Channel Islands. The youngest rocks are found in south east England. Seismology (from the Greek seismos = earthquake and logos = word) is the scientific study of earthquakes and the movement of waves through the Earth. ...
In geology, a crust is the outer layer of a planet, part of its lithosphere. ...
Earth, also known as the Earth or Terra, is the third planet outward from the Sun. ...
Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country in northwest Europe, occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain. ...
A planet (from the Greek πλανήτης, planētēs which means wanderer or more forcefully vagrant, tramp) is an object in orbit around a star that is not a star in its own right. ...
Traditional coat of arms This article is about the historical duchy and French province, as well as the cultural area of Brittany. ...
The Channel Islands are a group of islands off the coast of Normandy, France, in the English Channel. ...
Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion...
The bedrock of the UK consists of many layers formed over vast periods of time. These were laid down in various climates as the global climate changed, the landmasses moved due to continental drift, and the land and sea levels rose or fell. From time to time horizontal forces caused the rock to undergo considerable deformation, folding the layers of rock to form mountains which have since been eroded and overlain with other layers. To further complicate the geology, the land has also been subject to periods of earthquakes and volcanic activity. Bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the Earths surface. ...
Portrayal of shifting continents The concept of continental drift was first proposed by Alfred Wegener. ...
Deformation is a change in shape due to an applied force. ...
Look up Erosion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA. Eroded paddock, Australia Detail of erosion Erosion is the displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock, and so forth) by the agents of wind, water, ice, movement in response to gravity...
Global earthquake epicenters, 1963–1998 An earthquake is a trembling or a shaking movement of the Earths surface. ...
This article is about volcanoes in geology. ...
Geological history
Proterozoic Era The Gneisses, the oldest rocks in the UK, date from at least 2,700 Ma (Ma = millions of years ago) in the Archean period of this era, the Earth itself being only about 4,600 Ma old. They are found in the far north west of Scotland and in the Hebrides, with a few small outcrops elsewhere. Formed from rock originally deposited at the surface of the planet, the rocks were later buried deep in the Earth's crust and metamorphosed into crystalline gneiss. Banded gneiss with dike of granite orthogneiss Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high grade regional metamorphic processes from preexisting formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks. ...
The Archean is a geologic eon; it is a somewhat antiquated term for the time span between 2500 million years before the present and 3800 million years before the present. ...
This article is about the Hebrides islands in Scotland. ...
Metamorphic rock is the result of the transformation of a pre-existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means change in form, derived from the Greek words meta, change, and morphe, form. The protolith is subjected to extreme heat (>150 degrees Celsius) and pressure causing profound...
South of the Gneisses are a complex mixture of rocks forming the North West Highlands and Grampian Highlands in Scotland, as well as the Connemara, Donegal and Mayo mountains of north Ireland. These are essentially the remains of folded sedimentary rocks that were originally 25 km thick, deposited over the gneiss on what was then the floor of the Iapetus Ocean. The process started in about 1,000 Ma, with a notable 7 km thick layer of Torridon Sandstone being deposited about 800 Ma, as well as the debris deposited by an ice sheet 670 Ma. The Scottish Highlands are considered to be the mountainous regions of Scotland north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault. ...
Grampian (Roinn a Mhonaidh in Gaelic) was a local government region of Scotland from 1975 to 1996. ...
Connemara (Irish Conamara), which derives from Conmhaicne Mara, (meaning: descendants of Conmhac, of the sea) is a region in the west of Ireland (County Galway). ...
Donegal (Dún na nGall in Irish) is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. ...
County Mayo (Irish: Maigh Eo, the plain of the yews) is a county on the west coast of Ireland. ...
Two types of sedimentary rock: limey shale overlaid by limestone. ...
The Iapetus Ocean was an Ocean that existed in the Southern Hemisphere between Scotland, England and Scandinavia between 400 and 600 million years ago. ...
Moraine is the general term for debris of all sorts originally transported by glaciers or ice sheets that have since melted away. ...
An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km² (19,305 mile²). The only current ice sheets are Antarctic and Greenland; during the last ice age at Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of Canada...
Paleomagnetic evidence indicates that 520 Ma, what is now the UK was split between two continents, separated by 7000 km (4500 miles) of ocean. The north of Scotland was located at about 20° south of the equator on the continent of Laurentia near the Tropic of Capricorn, while the rest of the country was at about 60° south on the continent of Gondwana near the Antarctic Circle. Paleomagnetism refers to the orientation of the Earths magnetic field as it is preserved in various magnetic iron bearing minerals throughout time. ...
Dymaxion map by Buckminster Fuller shows land mass with minimal distortion as only one continuous continent A continent (Latin continere, to hold together) is a large continuous land mass. ...
The equator is an imaginary line drawn around a planet, halfway between the poles. ...
Laurentia is the craton at the heart of North America. ...
The Tropic of Capricorn is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. ...
Pangea broke into the two supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana The southern supercontinent Gondwana (originally Gondwanaland) included most of the landmasses which make up todays continents of the southern hemisphere, including Antarctica, South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Arabia, Australia-New Guinea and New Zealand. ...
Zoomable PDF of the map this is based on The Antarctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. ...
In Gondwana, England and Wales were near a subduction zone. Both countries were large submerged under a shallow sea studded with volcanic islands. The remains of these islands underlie much of central England with small outcrops visible in many places. 600 MA, the Cadomian Orogeny (mountain building period) caused the English and Welsh landscape to be transformed into a mountainous region, along with much of north west Europe. Subduction zones mark sites of convective downwelling of the Earths lithosphere. ...
A volcano is a geological landform (usually a mountain) where magma (rock of the earths interior made molten or liquid by high pressure and temperature) erupts through the surface of the planet. ...
A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. ...
Paleozoic Era
Cambrian period In the early Cambrian period the volcanoes and mountains of England and Wales were eroded as the land became flooded, and new layers of sediment were laid down. As this is when the first hard shells evolved, fossils become much more common from this period onwards. The Cambrian is a major division of the geologic timescale that begins about 542 million years before the present (BP) at the end of the Proterozoic eon and ended about 490 million years BP with the beginning of the Ordovician period. ...
A fossil Ammonite Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals or plants or other traces such as footprints. ...
Ordovician period 500 million years ago, in the Ordovician period, southern Britain, the east coast of North America and south-east Newfoundland broke away from Gondwana to form the continent of Avalonia, which by 440 Ma had drifted (by the mechanisms of plate tectonics) to about 30° south. The Ordovician period is the second of the six (seven in North America) periods of the Paleozoic era. ...
World map showing location of North America A satellite composite image of North America North America is the third largest continent in area and fourth in population after Asia and Africa in area and population and Europe in population. ...
Newfoundland (French: Terre-Neuve; Irish: Talamh an Éisc; Latin: Terra Nova) is a large island off the north-east coast of North America, and the most populous part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. ...
Avalonia was a paleomicrocontinent also known as a Terrane. ...
Plate tectonics (from the Greek word for one who constructs, τεκτων, tekton) is a theory of geology developed to explain the phenomenon of continental drift, and is currently the theory accepted by the vast majority of scientists working in this area. ...
Having joined with the continent of Baltica, the combined landmass collided with Laurentia at about 20° south around 425 Ma, joining the southern and northern halves of the British Isles together. Baltica is the craton beneath northwestern Eurasia. ...
Laurentia is the craton at the heart of North America. ...
The British Isles consist of Great Britain, Ireland and a number of much smaller surrounding islands. ...
During this period north Wales (and south Mayo in Ireland) experienced volcanic activity. The remains of these volcanoes are still visible, for example Rhobell Fwar, dating from 510 Ma. Large quantities of volcanic lava and ash known as the Borrowdale Volcanics covered both Wales and the Lake District, still seen in the form of mountains such as Helvellyn and Scafell Pike. National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English(100%), Welsh(20. ...
County Mayo (Irish: Maigh Eo, the plain of the yews) is a county on the west coast of Ireland. ...
This article is about volcanoes in geology. ...
Lava is molten rock that a volcano expels during an eruption. ...
The Borrowdale Volcanics are a very specific type of rock found in the Borrowdale area of the Lake District, in England. ...
Crinkle Crags as seen from the adjoining fell of Cold Pike. ...
Helvellyn, at 950 metres (3,117 feet) above sea-level, is the third highest mountain in the English Lake District. ...
At 978 metres, or 3210 feet, Scafell Pike is the highest mountain in England. ...
The Ordovician also saw the formation of the Welsh Skiddaw slate deposits around 500 Ma. Skiddaw is a hill in the Lake District National Park in the United Kingdom. ...
Alternate meanings in Slate (disambiguation) Slate Slate is a fine-grained homogeneous sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash which has been metamorphosed (foliated) in layers (bedded deposits). ...
Silurian period As the two halves of the British Isles collided between 425 and 400 Ma, the Caledonian fold mountains formed (the Caledonian Orogeny), covering much of what is now the UK to perhaps 8000 feet (2500 m) thick.
Volcanic ashes and lavas deposited during the Silurian are still found in the Mendip Hills and in Pembrokeshire. The Silurian is a major division of the geologic timescale that extends from the end of the Ordovician period, about 439 million years ago (mega years ago, mya), to the beginning of the Devonian period, about 408. ...
The Mendip Hills as seen from Crook Peak. ...
Pembrokeshire (Welsh: Sir Benfro) is a county in the southwest of Wales in the United Kingdom. ...
Devonian period The collision between continents continued during the Devonian period, with more volcanic deposits such as those now forming Ben Nevis. Sea levels varied considerably, with the coastline advancing and retreating from north to south across England, and with the deposition of numerous sedimentary rock layers. The Old Red Sandstone of Devon gave the period its name, though deposits are found in many other places. The Devonian is a major division of the geologic timescale that extends from the end of the Silurian period (360 million years ago (mya)) to the beginning of the Mississippian subperiod of the Carboniferous (408. ...
Map sources for Ben Nevis at grid reference NN166713 Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles. ...
The Old Red Sandstone is a rock formation of considerable importance to early paleontology. ...
Devon is a county in South West England, bordering on Cornwall to the west, Dorset and Somerset to the east. ...
The Caledonian mountains had largely been eroded away by the end of the period during which the country would have experienced an arid desert climate and been located between 10° to 15° south of the equator. Look up Erosion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA. Eroded paddock, Australia Detail of erosion Erosion is the displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock, and so forth) by the agents of wind, water, ice, movement in response to gravity...
A dune in the Egyptian desert Desert in California In geography, a desert is a landscape form or region that receives little precipitation. ...
Carboniferous period 360 Ma during the Carboniferous period the UK was lying at the equator, covered by the warm shallow waters of the Rheic Ocean, during which time the Carboniferous Limestone was deposited, as found in the Mendip Hills, north and south Wales, in the Peak District of Derbyshire, north Lancashire, the northern Pennines and southeast Scotland. The Carboniferous is a major division of the geologic timescale that extends from the end of the Devonian period, about 340 million years ago (mya), to the beginning of the Permian period, about 280 mya. ...
The Mendip Hills as seen from Crook Peak. ...
National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English(100%), Welsh(20. ...
Rock climbers on Stanage Edge. ...
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, which boasts some of Englands most attractive hill and mountain scenery. ...
Lancashire (archaically, the County of Lancaster) is a county palatine of England, lying on the Irish Sea. ...
Typical Pennine scenery. ...
Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country in northwest Europe, occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain. ...
These were followed by dark marine shales, siltstones and coarse sandstones of the Millstone Grit. Later, river deltas formed and the sediments deposited were colonised by swamps and rain forest. It was in this environment that the cyclic Coal Measures were formed, the source of the majority of the UK's extensive coal reserves that powered the Industrial Revolution. Coal can be found in many areas of the UK, as far north as the midland valley of Scotland, as far south as Kent and in Northern Ireland, though it has largely been mined in the midlands, northern England and Wales. Throughout the period, southwest England in particular was affected by the collision of continental plates. The Variscan Orogeny (mountain building period) around 280 Ma caused major deformation in south west England. Towards its end granite was formed beneath the overlying rocks of Devon and Cornwall, now exposed as Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor, giving rise to mineralised deposits of copper and tin. Lesser folding took place as far north as Derbyshire and Berwick-upon-Tweed. Nile River delta, as seen from Earth orbit. ...
A freshwater swamp swamp (disambiguation) A swamp is a wetland that features permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water, generally with a substantial number of hummocks, or dry-land protrusions. ...
A rainforest is a forested biome with high annual rainfall. ...
A cycle is anything round, in the physical sense (e. ...
A coal measure (stratigraphic unit) is the name given to any rock sequence that occurs in the upper part of the Carboniferous System in Europe. ...
Coal is a fossil fuel extracted from the ground either by underground mining, open-pit mining or strip mining. ...
The Industrial Revolution was the major social, economic and technological change in the late 18th and early 19th century. ...
Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country in northwest Europe, occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain. ...
Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ...
Northern Ireland is one of four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. ...
The midlands of a territory are its central regions. ...
Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion...
National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English(100%), Welsh(20. ...
Granite is a common and widely-occurring group of intrusive felsic igneous rocks that form at great depths and pressures under continents. ...
Devon is a county in South West England, bordering on Cornwall to the west, Dorset and Somerset to the east. ...
Cornwall (Cornish: Kernow or occasionally Curnow) is a county of England, the part of Great Britains south-west peninsula that is west of the River Tamar, often known as the Cornish peninsula or plateau. ...
Dartmoor is a National Park in the centre of the English county of Devon. ...
The Cheeswring, a granite tor on the southern edge of Bodmin Moor (Photo by Mick Knapton) Bodmin Moor is a granite moorland in northeastern Cornwall, England, 208 km² in size, dating from the Carboniferous period of geological history. ...
General Name, Symbol, Number copper, Cu, 29 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11 , 4, d Density, Hardness 8920 kg/m3, 3. ...
General Name, Symbol, Number tin, Sn, 50 Chemical series poor metals Group, Period, Block 14 (IVA), 5, p Density, Hardness 7310 kg/m3, 1. ...
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, which boasts some of Englands most attractive hill and mountain scenery. ...
Map sources for Berwick-upon-Tweed at grid reference NT9952 Berwick-upon-Tweed from across the river Berwick-upon-Tweed, (pronounced Berrick) situated in the county of Northumberland, is the northernmost town in England, situated on the east coast on the mouth of the river Tweed. ...
By the end of the period the various continents of the World had fused to form one super-continent of Pangaea, with Great Britain in the interior, where it was again subject to a hot arid desert climate, with frequent flash floods leaving deposits that formed red beds, somewhat similar to the later, Triassic New Red Sandstone. Map of Pangaea Pangaea (Greek for all lands) is the supercontinent that existed during the Mesozoic era, before the process of plate tectonics separated the component continents. ...
The Triassic is a Geologic period that extends from about 248 to 202 million years (My or megayears) before the present. ...
Permian period After 30 million years of arid desert at the start of the period, much of the UK was submerged in shallow waters as the polar ice sheets melted and the Tethys Ocean and Zechstein Sea formed, depositing shale, limestone, gravel, and marl, before finally receding to leave a flat desert with salt pans. The Tethys Ocean was an ocean that existed between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia before the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. ...
Shale Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. ...
Gravel Gravel is rock that is of a certain size range. ...
The following text is taken from the Household Cyclopedia of 1881: Marl is a material commonly used as fertilizer. ...
A salt pan is a geological formation found in deserts. ...
Mesozoic Era
Triassic As Pangaea drifted during the Triassic, the UK moved away from the equator until it was between 20° and 30° north. Red beds, including sandstones and red mudstones form the main sediments of the New Red Sandstone. Rock fragments found near Bristol appear to indicate that in 214 Ma Great Britain was showered with a fine layer of debris from an asteroid impact at the Manicouagan Impact Crater in Canada, although this is still being debated. The Triassic is a Geologic period that extends from about 248 to 202 million years (My or megayears) before the present. ...
Red Sandstone in Wyoming Layered sandstone Sandstone is an arenaceous sedimentary rock composed mainly of feldspar and quartz and varies in colour (in a similar way to sand), through grey, yellow, red, and white. ...
Bristol is an English city and county and one of the two administrative centres of South West England (the other being Plymouth). ...
Artists impression of a major impact event. ...
Jurassic period As the Jurassic started, Pangaea began to break up and sea levels rose, as the UK drifted on the Eurasian Plate to between 30° and 40° north. With much of the UK under water again, sedimentary rocks were deposited and can now be found underlying much of southern England from the Cleveland Hills of Yorkshire to the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, including clays, sandstones, and the oolitic limestone of the Cotswold Hills. The Jurassic period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 200 million years BP at the end of the Triassic to 146 million years BP at the beginning of the Cretaceous. ...
Map of Pangaea Pangaea (Greek for all lands) is the supercontinent that existed during the Mesozoic era, before the process of plate tectonics separated the component continents. ...
Categories: Plate tectonics | Geology stubs ...
Yorkshire as a traditional county. ...
Lulworth Cove The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site in south England. ...
Dorset (pronounced Dorsit, sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the southwest of England, on the English Channel coast. ...
Clay is a generic term for an aggregate of hydrous silicate particles less than 4 μm (micrometres) in diameter. ...
An Oolite (or an oolith) is a sphere consisting of several concentric layers of calcite (a form of calcium carbonate) that was created by precipitation in the supersaturated warm waters of shallow tropical seas. ...
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in central England, sometimes called the heart of England, a hilly area reaching nearly 300 m or 1000 feet. ...
The burial of algae and bacteria below the mud of the sea floor during this time resulted in the formation of North Sea oil and natural gas, much of it trapped in overlying sandstone by salt deposits formed as the seas fell to form the swamps and salty lakes and lagoons that were home to dinosaurs. The algae (singular alga) comprise several different groups of living things that produce energy through photosynthesis. ...
Phyla/Divisions Actinobacteria Aquificae Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Chlamydiae/Verrucomicrobia Chloroflexi Chrysiogenetes Cyanobacteria Deferribacteres Deinococcus-Thermus Dictyoglomi Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria Firmicutes Fusobacteria Gemmatimonadetes Nitrospirae Omnibacteria Planctomycetes Proteobacteria Spirochaetes Thermodesulfobacteria Thermomicrobia Thermotogae Bacteria (singular, bacterium) are a major group of living organisms. ...
North Sea oil refers to oil and natural gas (hydrocarbons) produced from reservoirs beneath the North Sea. ...
Natural gas rig Natural gas (commonly refered to as gas in many countries) is a gaseous fossil fuel consisting primarily of methane. ...
In chemistry, salt is a general term used for ionic compounds composed of positively charged cations and negatively charged anions, so that the product is neutral and without a net charge. ...
Orders Saurischia Sauropodomorpha Theropoda Ornithischia Dinosaurs are animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 100-million years. ...
Cretaceous period The modern continents having formed, the Cretaceous saw the formation of the Atlantic Ocean, gradually separating northern Scotland from north America. The land underwent a series of uplifts to form a fertile plain. The Cretaceous period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic period (about 135 mya) to the beginning of the Paleocene epoch of the Tertiary period (65 mya). ...
After 20 million years or so, the seas started to flood the land again until much of Great Britain was below the sea, though sea levels frequently changed. Chalk and flints were deposited over much of Great Britain, now notably exposed at the White Cliffs of Dover, and forming Salisbury Plain. The Needles, part of the extensive Southern England Chalk Formation Chalk is a soft, white, porous form of limestone composed of the mineral calcium carbonate. ...
Pebble beach made up of flint nodules eroded out of the nearby chalk cliffs, Cape Arkona, Rügen Flint (or flintstone) is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline silica rock with a glassy appearance. ...
Location within the British Isles. ...
This article is about the plateau in southern England; Salisbury Plain is also an area on South Georgia Island. ...
Cenozoic Era
Tertiary period In the early Tertiary period between 63 and 52 Ma, the last volcanic rocks in the UK were formed, with the major eruptions that formed the Antrim Plateau and the basaltic columns of the Giant's Causeway. The volcanic Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel also dates from this period. The Tertiary period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, from the end of the Cretaceous period about 64 million years ago to the start of the Quaternary period about 1. ...
County Antrim (Aontroim in Irish) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. ...
Basalt Basalt is an extrusive igneous rock, sometimes porphyritic, and is often both fine-grained and dense. ...
Basalt columns Giants Causeway A plane of columns The Giants Boot The Giants Causeway is an area of 40,000 tightly packed basalt columns resulting from a volcanic eruption 60 million years ago1. ...
The Old Light, Lundy For a map, see the end of this article Lundy is an island in the Bristol Channel of Great Britain, about a third of the way from Devon to the coast of South Wales. ...
The location of the Bristol Channel The Severn Bridge and Bristol Channel, looking northwestward from England towards Wales The Bristol Channel coast at Ilfracombe, North Devon, looking west towards Lee Bay The Bristol Channel is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from South West...
The Alpine Orogeny that took place about 50 Ma was also responsible for the shaping of the Weald south of London. The Alps arose as a result of the pressure exerted on sediments of the Tethys Ocean basin as its Mesozoic and early Cenozoic strata were pushed against the stable Eurasian landmass by the northward-moving African landmass. ...
A weald once meant a dense forest, especially the famous great wood once stretching far beyond the ancient counties of Sussex and Kent, England, where this country of smaller woods is still called the Weald. ...
During the period the North Sea formed, Britain was uplifted and eroded, and further sediments were deposited over southern England, including the London Clay, while the English Channel consisted of mud flats and river deposited sands. The North Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, located between the coasts of Norway and Denmark in the east, the coast of the British Isles in the west, and the German, Dutch, Belgian and French coasts in the south. ...
Biological uplift refers to the theoretic prospect of upgrading the capacities of non-human animals or other intelligences. ...
The London Clay is a marine deposit which is well known for the fossils it contains. ...
The English Channel ( French:La Manche) is the part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the island of Great Britain from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. ...
Mudflats are relatively flat, muddy regions found in intertidal areas. ...
Patterns in the sand Sand is an example of a class of materials called granular matter. ...
By 35 Ma the landscape included beech, oak, redwood and palm trees, along with grassland. By the end of the period, just 2 million years ago, the landscape would have been broadly recognisable today. Species Fagus crenata - Japanese Beech Fagus engleriana - Chinese Beech Fagus grandifolia - American Beech Fagus hayatae - Taiwan Beech Fagus japonica - Japanese Blue Beech Fagus longipetiolata - South Chinese Beech Fagus lucida - Shining Beech Fagus mexicana - Mexican Beech or Haya Fagus orientalis - Oriental Beech Fagus sylvatica - European Beech Beech (Fagus) is a genus...
Oakland International Airport is located in Oakland, California and serves the San Francisco Bay Area metro region. ...
Redwood is a name used for several species of trees with wood with a red or reddish colour; see each species for individual details. ...
Genera Many; see list of Arecaceae genera Arecaceae (also known as Palmae or Palmaceae), the Palm Family, is a family of flowering plants, belonging to the monocot order, Arecales. ...
In popular language grass means a short, green, ground covering or lawn, usually, but not necessarily comprised of a true grass or grasses, called turf. ...
Quaternary period The major changes during the Quaternary period have been brought about by several recent ice ages. The Quaternary Period is the geologic time period from the end of the Pliocene Epoch roughly 1. ...
Variations in CO2, temperature and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400 000 years For the animated movie, see Ice Age (movie). ...
The most severe was the Anglian glaciation, with ice up to 1,000 m (3300 ft) thick that reached as far south as London and Bristol, took place between about 500,000 to 400,000 years ago, and was responsible for the diversion of the River Thames onto its present course. The Anglian glaciation is a name for an ice age period which occurred between 450,000 and 300,000 years ago. ...
The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster which contains Big Ben Tower Bridge at night A red double-decker bus crosses Piccadilly Circus. ...
Bristol is an English city and county and one of the two administrative centres of South West England (the other being Plymouth). ...
Length 346 km Elevation of the source 110 m Average discharge entering Oxford: 17. ...
There is extensive evidence in the form of stone tools that southern England was colonised by human populations during the warm Hoxnian interglacial period that followed the Anglian Glaciation. It is possible that the English Channel repeatedly opened and closed during this period, causing Britain to become an island from time to time. The oldest human fossils in the UK also date from this time, including the skull of Swanscombe Man from 250,000 years ago, and the earlier Clactonian Man. Binomial name Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Subspecies Homo sapiens idaltu (extinct) Homo sapiens sapiens Human beings define themselves in biological, social, and spiritual terms. ...
The Hoxnian interglacial is a name for an interglacial period which occurred between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. ...
The English Channel ( French:La Manche) is the part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the island of Great Britain from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. ...
A fossil Ammonite Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals or plants or other traces such as footprints. ...
Barnfield Pit is the site of a gravel quarry near the village of Swanscombe in the north west of the English county of Kent. ...
The Clactonian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tool manufacture which dates to the early part of the interglacial period known as the Hoxnian, the Mindell-Riss or the Holstein interglacial (300,000-200,000 years ago). ...
The Wolstonian glaciation, between about 200,000 to 130,000 years ago, and thought to have peaked around 150,000 years ago, was named after the town of Wolston south of Birmingham which is thought to mark the southern limit of the ice. The Wolstonian glaciation is a name for an ice age period which occurred between 200,000 and 125,000 years ago. ...
Wolston is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire, England. ...
The city from above Centenary Square. ...
The Wolstonian was followed by the Ipswichian interglacial, during which hippopotamus are known to have lived as far north as Leeds. The Ipswichian interglacial is a name for an interglacial period which occurred between 150,000 and 115,000 years ago. ...
Binomial name Hippopotamus amphibius Linnaeus, 1758 The Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) or Greek ἵππόποταμος (river horse) is a large, plant-eating African mammal, one of only two living and three (or four) recently extinct species in the family Hippopotamidae. ...
Location within the British Isles. ...
During the most recent Devensian glaciation, which is thought to have started around 115,000 years ago, peaked around 20,000 years ago and ended a mere 10,000 years ago, the Usk valley and Wye valley were eroded by glaciers, with the ice sheet itself reaching south to Birmingham. The oldest human remains in the UK, the Red Lady of Paviland (29,000 years old) date from this time. It is thought that the country was eventually abandoned as the ice sheet reached its peak, being recolonised as it retreated. By 5,000 years ago it is thought that Britain was warmer than it is at present. The Devensian glaciation is a name for an ice age period which occurred between 120,000 and 10,000 years ago. ...
The River Usk, Afon Wysg in Welsh, rises in the mountains of mid-Wales then flows south-east through Abergavenny and the eponymous town of Usk to the Roman legionary fortress of Caerleon and the Bristol Channel at Newport. ...
The River Wye (Welsh: Afon Gwy) is the fifth-longest river in the UK. Its source is in the Welsh mountains at Plynlimon at 741 metres above sea level. ...
Austrias longest glacier, the Pasterze, winds its 8 km (5 mile) route at the foot of Austrias highest mountain, the Grossglockner. ...
The city from above Centenary Square. ...
The Red Lady of Paviland was a fairly complete human skeleton dyed in red ochre that was discovered in 1826 by Rev. ...
Among the features left behind by the ice are the fjords of the west coast of Scotland, the U shaped valleys of the Lake District and erratics (blocks of rock) that have been transported from the Oslo region of Norway and deposited on the coast of Yorkshire. Lysefjorden in Norway A fjord (IPA or ; sometimes written fiord, notably in New Zealand English) is a glacially overdeepened valley, usually narrow and steep-sided, extending below sea level and filled with salt water. ...
A glaciated valley is one formed by the process of glaciation. ...
Crinkle Crags as seen from the adjoining fell of Cold Pike. ...
County Oslo NO-03 Landscape Viken Municipality NO-0301 Administrative centre Oslo Mayor (2004) Per Ditlev-Simonsen (H) Official language form Neutral Area - Total - Land - Percentage Ranked 224 454 km² 426 km² 0. ...
Yorkshire as a traditional county. ...
Holocene Epoch Over the last twelve thousand years (the Holocene Epoch) the most significant new geological features have been the deposits of peat in Ireland and Scotland, as well as in coastal areas that have recently been artificially drained such as the Somerset Levels, The Fens and Romney Marsh in England. The Holocene Epoch is a geologic period that extends from the present back about 10,000 radiocarbon years. ...
Peat in Lewis, Scotland Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetable matter. ...
The Somerset Levels (or Somerset Levels and Moors as they are less commonly but more correctly called) is a sparsely populated wetland area of central Somerset between the Quantock and Mendip hills, consisting of marine clay levels along the coast, and the inland (often peat based) moors. The total area...
The Fens may also refer to the Back Bay Fens, park in Boston, Massachusetts. ...
The Romney Marsh is a sparsely-populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. ...
Since humans began clearing the forest during the new stone age, most of the land has now been deforested, speeding the natural processes of erosion. Large quantities of stone, gravel and clay are extracted each year, and by 2000 11% of England was covered by roads or buildings. The Neolithic, (Greek neos=new, lithos=stone, or New Stone Age) was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. ...
Look up Erosion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA. Eroded paddock, Australia Detail of erosion Erosion is the displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock, and so forth) by the agents of wind, water, ice, movement in response to gravity...
2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion...
A road is a strip of land, smoothed or otherwise prepared to allow easier travel, connecting two or more destinations. ...
Building is either the act of creating an object assembled from more than one element, or the object itself; see also construction. ...
At the present time Scotland is continuing to rise as a result of the weight of Devensian ice being lifted. The rest of the UK is sinking, generally estimated at 1 mm (1/25 inch) per year, with the London area sinking at double the speed partly due to the continuing compression of the recent clay deposits.
In addition, rises in sea level thought to be due to global warming appear likely to make low lying areas of land increasingly susceptible to flooding, while in some areas the coastline continues to erode at a geologically rapid rate. Global mean surface temperatures 1856-2004 Global warming is a term used to describe an increase over time of the average temperature of Earths atmosphere and oceans. ...
The UK continues to be subject to several very minor earthquakes each month, and occasional light to moderate ones. During the 20th century 25 earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.5 to 6.1 on the Richter scale were felt in the UK [1], many of them originating within the national borders. Global earthquake epicenters, 1963–1998 An earthquake is a trembling or a shaking movement of the Earths surface. ...
(19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...
The Richter magnitude test scale (or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. ...
Geological features Cheddar Gorge is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom Cheddar Gorge is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom, near the village of Cheddar in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England. ...
Categories: Stub ...
This article is about the plateau in southern England; Salisbury Plain is also an area on South Georgia Island. ...
Lulworth Cove The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site in south England. ...
The Tees-Exe line is an imaginary line that can be draw on a map of the British mainland which roughly divides the lowland and upland regions of the country. ...
Geological resources Coal is a fossil fuel extracted from the ground either by underground mining, open-pit mining or strip mining. ...
North Sea oil refers to oil and natural gas (hydrocarbons) produced from reservoirs beneath the North Sea. ...
This is intended as a list of, or links to, stone currently or historically produced in various countries (not generic types of stone). ...
Events On 30 January 1607 (New style) the Bristol Channel floods resulted in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 or more people, with houses and villages swept away, farmland inundated and livestock destroyed, wrecking the local economy along the coasts of the Bristol Channel. ...
Arms of Colchester Borough Council Colchester town centre Map sources for Colchester at grid reference TL9925 Colchester is an historical town in the north of the English county of Essex, with a population of about 160,000. ...
1884 is a leap year starting on Tuesday (click on link to calendar). ...
The 2002 Dudley earthquake was an earthquake registering 5. ...
Institutions The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of investigating the mineral structure of the Earth. It is the oldest geological society in the world. ...
People Mary Anning (May 21, 1799 - March 9, 1847) was an early British fossil collector and paleontologist. ...
Thomas George Bonney (July 27, 1833 - December 10, 1923) was an English geologist. ...
William Buckland (12 March 1784 - 24 August 1856) was a prominent English geologist and palaeontologist who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, a proponent of Old Earth creationism and Flood geology who later became convinced by the glaciation theory of Louis Agassiz. ...
William Daniel Conybeare (June 7, 1787 - August 12, 1857) was an English geologist and paleontologist. ...
James Hutton, painted by Abner Lowe. ...
Charles Lapworth (September 20, 1842_March 13, 1920) was a 19th century English geologist. ...
Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell (November 14, 1797 – February 22, 1875), British lawyer, geologist, and popularizer of uniformitarianism. ...
Gideon Algernon Mantell (February 3, 1790 – November 10, 1852) was an English obstetrician, geologist, and paleontologist. ...
Sir Roderick Murchison Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (February 19, 1792 – October 22, 1871), was a powerful Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian era. ...
For other people with this name, see John Phillips John Phillips (December 25, 1800 – April 24, 1874) was an English geologist. ...
Adam Sedgwick (March 22nd, 1785–January 27, 1873) was one of the founders of modern geology. ...
Nicholas John Shackleton is a geologist specialising in the Quaternary Period. ...
William Smith. ...
Awards The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London. ...
See also - Geology of Northern Ireland, Geology of Scotland, Geology of Wales
- By English county: Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham, East Riding of Yorkshire, East Sussex, Essex, Goucestershire, Greater Manchester, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, London, Merseyside, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Somerset, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Tyne and Wear, Warwickshire, West Midlands, West Sussex, West Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire
The British Geological Survey is a publicly-funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. ...
Geology (from Greek γη- (ge-, the earth) and λογος (logos, word, reason)) is the science and study of the Earth, its composition, structure, physical properties, history, and the processes that shape it. ...
The geologic timescale is used by geologists and other scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occured during the history of the Earth. ...
A coal measure (stratigraphic unit) is the name given to any rock sequence that occurs in the upper part of the Carboniferous System in Europe. ...
The Chalk Formations of Europe are thick deposits of chalk, a soft porous white limestone, deposited in a marine environment during the upper Cretaceous period. ...
The London Clay is a marine deposit which is well known for the fossils it contains. ...
The Gault Clay is a formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). ...
Stylised simple Geology map of Dorset Dorset rests on a variety of different rock types which give the county its interesting landscapes and habitats. ...
Hampshires geology falls into two categories. ...
The rocks of the English county of Hertfordshire belong to the great shallow syncline known as the London basin, the beds dip in a south-easterly direction towards the synclines lowest point roughly under the River Thames. ...
Shortcut: UK topics This is a list of topics related to the United Kingdom. ...
This is a list of natural disasters in the United Kingdom. ...
External links - UK Earthquakes
- UK Peak District Geology
|
Feeds |
Contact