Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.1
Relief and drainage of Upper
Wharfedale, North Yorkshire.
600
300
400
outcrops prominently in Wharfedale and Littondale. Its
name derives from the manner in which it weathers and
erodes into terraces along bedding planes. Being well
jointed, backwards retreat occurs by the successive fall of
cube-shaped masses, thus retaining a vertical bare rock
face, or 'scar'. The Great Scar Limestone has been well
studied, not least because of the striking variety of
karst
features to which it gives rise, both underground and on
the surface (Waltham
et al
. 1997).
Overlying the Carboniferous Limestone Series are
about 230 m of strata of the Wensleydale Group (previ-
ously called the Yoredale Series) consisting of cyclical
deposits of limestones, sandstones and shales. In turn the
Wensleydale strata are overlain by about 40 m of Millstone
Grit, a series of coarse sandstones which give the highest
flat-topped peaks in the Yorkshire Dales, as on the eastern
side of Upper Wharfedale at Buckden Pike (702 m) and
Great Whernside (704 m).
