A view across the Don Valley from Wharncliffe Crags |
My day out to Chatsworth House, in October 2019, concluded 8 months of extensive travel by bus and train from Treeton to more than 40 places in the counties that surround South Yorkshire - very many of which involved 2 changes in transport each way.
At the Lowood Club |
This memorable year of exploration ended with a geology field trip with the U3A to Wharncliffe Crags, followed by a visit to Wortley Top Forge in the afternoon - places that I had passed by many times since living in South Yorkshire but had never visited.
A map of Deepcar and Wharncliffe Crags |
Gathering at the Lowood Club on Station Road in Deepcar for our usual 10:30 start, we began with an introduction by our leader of the day, Dr. Gareth Martin of the West Yorkshire Geology Trust, and a short talk about the mining of ganister in the area.
A bat sleeping beneath a railway bridge |
We then made our way up the lower slopes by a track that passed under two railway lines, one of which housed a bat, and carried on until we reached Wharncliffe Crags, a prominent rocky outcrop of the Wharncliff Rock - a medium grained massive sandstone in the Lower Pennine Coal Measures Formation.
Wharncliffe Crags |
The rocks at the north-western end of Wharncliffe Crags have been quarried to produce quern-stones as long ago as the Iron Age, continuing into the period of the Roman occupation of Britain, and it is protected as a Scheduled Monument.
Blocks of Wharncliff Rock |
Along the crags, two principal sandstone beds are exposed. The lower one, around 10 m thick, has well developed cross-bedding, typical of river point-bar sediments and is interpreted as the remains of a meandering river channel. The upper bed is thinner, up to 2 m, but shows interesting soft-sediment deformation structures.
Deformation structures in the Wharncliff Rock |
These sections afford one of the best preserved examples of a fluvial meander belt in the Pennines, of considerable importance for sedimentological investigations of the Coal Measures of this region and was designated as a SSSI in 1988.
Deformation structures in the Wharncliff Rock |
We stopped off at several places to examine various sedimentary structures, including examples of deformation structures and sand volcanoes, which are considered to be a good indication that earthquakes occurred in the area.
An exposure of Loxley Edge Rock in an old quarry |
Having looked at these unusual structures, we then retraced our steps back to the River Don, where there is an exposure of the Loxley Edge Rock in a disused quarry. Positioned at the rear of the group and some way from our leader, I just took a few photos before we returned to our cars and headed off to Wortley Top Forge.
A detail of weathering in the Loxley Edge Rock |
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