The geology of Great Britain is renowned for its diversity. As a result of its eventful geological history, Great Britain shows a rich variety of landscapes across the constituent countries of England, Wales and Scotland. Rocks of almost all geological ages are represented at outcrop, from the Archaean onwards.
Dorset is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. Covering an area of 2,653 square kilometres (1,024 sq mi); it borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, and Hampshire to the east. The great variation in its landscape owes much to the underlying geology which includes an almost unbroken sequence of rocks from 200 Ma to 40 Ma and superficial deposits from 2 Ma to the present. In general the oldest rocks appear in the far west of the county, with the most recent (Eocene) in the far east. Jurassic rocks also underlie the Blackmore Vale and comprise much of the coastal cliff in the west and south of the county; and although younger Cretaceous rocks crown some of the highpoints in the west, they are mainly to be found in the centre and east of the county.
Rockingham Forest is a former royal hunting forest in the county of Northamptonshire, England. It is an area of some 200 sq mi (500 km2) lying between the River Welland and River Nene and the towns of Stamford and Kettering. It has a rich and varied landscape, with farmland, open pasture, pockets of woodland and villages built from local stone.
The Lincoln Cliff or Lincoln Edge is a portion of a major escarpment that runs north–south through Lindsey and Kesteven in central Lincolnshire and is a prominent landscape feature in a generally flat portion of the county.
The Lincolnshire Limestone Formation is a geological formation in England, part of the Inferior Oolite Group of the (Bajocian) Middle Jurassic strata of eastern England. It was formed around 165 million years ago, in a shallow, warm sea on the margin of the London Platform and has estuarine beds above and below it. The maximum known thickness is 40.2 metres, at around TF9730, while four kilometres further west it is 18.3 metres thick at its outcrop in the upper Witham valley. It fades out in the south, around Kettering in Northamptonshire.
The London-Brabant Massif or London-Brabant Platform is, in the tectonic structure of Europe, a structural high or massif that stretches from the Rhineland in western Germany across northern Belgium and the North Sea to the sites of East Anglia and the middle Thames in southern England.
The Geology of Yorkshire in northern England shows a very close relationship between the major topographical areas and the geological period in which their rocks were formed. The rocks of the Pennine chain of hills in the west are of Carboniferous origin whilst those of the central vale are Permo-Triassic. The North York Moors in the north-east of the county are Jurassic in age while the Yorkshire Wolds to the south east are Cretaceous chalk uplands. The plain of Holderness and the Humberhead levels both owe their present form to the Quaternary ice ages. The strata become gradually younger from west to east.
The Lias Group or Lias is a lithostratigraphic unit found in a large area of western Europe, including the British Isles, the North Sea, the Low Countries and the north of Germany. It consists of marine limestones, shales, marls and clays.
The Inferior Oolite is a sequence of Jurassic age sedimentary rocks in Europe. It was deposited during the Middle Jurassic. The Inferior Oolite Group as more recently defined is a Jurassic lithostratigraphic group in southern and eastern England. It has been variously known in the past as the Under Oolite, the Inferior Oolite, the Inferior Oolite Series and the Redbourne Group.
The Forest Marble is a geological formation in England. Part of the Great Oolite Group, it dates to back to the late Bathonian stage of the Middle Jurassic.
The Northampton Sand Formation, sometimes called the Northamptonshire Sand, is a Middle Jurassic geological formation which is placed within the Inferior Oolite Group. It was formerly worked extensively in Northamptonshire for its ironstone.
The Great Oolite Group is a Middle Jurassic stratigraphic unit that outcrops in southern England. It consists of a complex set of marine deposits primarily mudstone and bioclastic ooidal and fine grained limestone, deposited in nearshore to shelf settings. It is exposed at the surface as a variably thick belt extending roughly NE-SW from the coast of Dorset up to the Humber. It is also present at depth in the Weald and Wessex Basins, as well as offshore. Several of the constituent formations, notably the Taynton Limestone Formation and the Forest Marble Formation are notable for their fossil content, including those of dinosaurs and pterosaurs and some of the earliest mammals.
The geology of Rutland in eastern England largely consists of sedimentary rocks of Jurassic age which dip gently eastwards.
The geology of Lincolnshire in eastern England largely consists of an easterly dipping succession of Mesozoic age sedimentary rocks, obscured across large parts of the county by unconsolidated deposits dating from the last few hundred thousand years of the present Quaternary Period.
The geology of West Sussex in southeast England comprises a succession of sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous age overlain in the south by sediments of Palaeogene age. The sequence of strata from both periods consists of a variety of sandstones, mudstones, siltstones and limestones. These sediments were deposited within the Hampshire and Weald basins. Erosion subsequent to large scale but gentle folding associated with the Alpine Orogeny has resulted in the present outcrop pattern across the county, dominated by the north facing chalk scarp of the South Downs. The bedrock is overlain by a suite of Quaternary deposits of varied origin. Parts of both the bedrock and these superficial deposits have been worked for a variety of minerals for use in construction, industry and agriculture.
Blisworth Rectory Farm Quarry is a 1.0 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Blisworth in Northamptonshire. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.
Finedon Top Lodge Quarry, also known as Finedon Gullet is a 0.9 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. It is a Geological Conservation Review site revealing a sequence of middle Jurassic limestones, sandstones and ironstones, and is the type section for a sequence of sedimentary rocks known as the 'Wellingborough Member'. It was created by quarrying for the underlying ironstone for use at Wellingborough and Corby Steelworks; the ore was transported by the 1,000 mm gauge Wellingborough Tramway.
The Blisworth Clay Formation is a geological formation in England. It is part of the Great Oolite Group and was deposited in the Bathonian stage of the Middle Jurassic. The predominant lithology is mudstone with thin beds of limestone and sandstone with ironstone nodules. Towards the South-West it laterally transitions into the Forest Marble Formation.
The Coralline Oolite Formation is a limestone formation of Oxfordian age, found in the Cleveland Basin of North Yorkshire, England.
The geology of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales is central to its character and to its appeal to visitors. The peninsula is formed almost entirely from a faulted and folded sequence of Carboniferous rocks though both the earlier Old Red Sandstone and later New Red Sandstone are also present. Gower lay on the southern margin of the last ice sheet and has been a focus of interest for researchers and students in that respect too. Cave development and the use of some for early human occupation is a further significant aspect of the peninsula's scientific and cultural interest.
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