Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
FIG
81.
Area 3, showing Landscapes
A
to
D
and localities (
a1, a2
etc.) mentioned in the
text.
FIG
82.
Dunkery Beacon (Fig. 81,
a1
). (Copyright Dae Sasitorn & Adrian Warren/
www.lastrefuge.co.uk)
However, there is much variation in landscape within Exmoor. To the east of the
main hilly plateaus and flat-topped ridges are the Brendon Hills (
a2
), a region of rolling
countryside with a large proportion of Exmoor's ancient oak woodland. Though the
upper ground of the rest of Exmoor is largely treeless, Exmoor's combes and valleys
are quite densely wooded with conifer plantations and broadleaved woodland (Fig. 83).
Much of Exmoor is a patchwork of fields claimed from the moor in the nineteenth cen-
tury. The moorland becomes wetter and more broken into hills and valleys towards the
south, approaching Landscape
B
.
Exmoor is the only large upland area in the Southwest Region that is made of sed-
imentary bedrock, rather than granite. The bedrock consists of Devonian sediments,
folded and altered during the Variscan convergence and of similar composition to the
