High Force is a waterfall on the River Tees, near Middleton-in-Teesdale, Teesdale, England. The waterfall is within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and the European Geopark. The waterfall is part of the historic county boundary between the North Riding of Yorkshire on the south bank, and County Durham on the north bank.
Dunite, also known as olivinite, is an intrusive igneous rock of ultramafic composition and with phaneritic (coarse-grained) texture. The mineral assemblage is greater than 90% olivine, with minor amounts of other minerals such as pyroxene, chromite, magnetite, and pyrope. Dunite is the olivine-rich endmember of the peridotite group of mantle-derived rocks.
In geology, a sill is a tabular sheet intrusion that has intruded between older layers of sedimentary rock, beds of volcanic lava or tuff, or along the direction of foliation in metamorphic rock. A sill is a concordant intrusive sheet, meaning that a sill does not cut across preexisting rock beds. Stacking of sills builds a sill complex and a large magma chamber at high magma flux. In contrast, a dike is a discordant intrusive sheet, which does cut across older rocks. Sills are fed by dikes, except in unusual locations where they form in nearly vertical beds attached directly to a magma source. The rocks must be brittle and fracture to create the planes along which the magma intrudes the parent rock bodies, whether this occurs along preexisting planes between sedimentary or volcanic beds or weakened planes related to foliation in metamorphic rock. These planes or weakened areas allow the intrusion of a thin sheet-like body of magma paralleling the existing bedding planes, concordant fracture zone, or foliations.
The North Pennines is the northernmost section of the Pennine range of hills which runs north–south through northern England. It lies between Carlisle to the west and Darlington to the east. It is bounded to the north by the Tyne Valley and to the south by the Stainmore Gap.
Intrusive rock is formed when magma penetrates existing rock, crystallizes, and solidifies underground to form intrusions, such as batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, and volcanic necks.
Teesdale is a dale, or valley, in Northern England. The dale is in the River Tees’s drainage basin, most water flows stem from or converge into said river, including the Skerne and Leven.
In geology, country rock is the rock native to an area, in contrast to any intrusion of viscous geologic material, commonly magma, or perhaps rock salt or unconsolidated sediments.
The Lizard complex, Cornwall is generally accepted to represent a preserved example of an exposed ophiolite complex in the United Kingdom. The rocks found in The Lizard area are analogous to those found in such famous areas as the Troodos Mountains, Cyprus and the Semail Ophiolite, Oman.
In geology, an igneous intrusion is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and compositions, illustrated by examples like the Palisades Sill of New York and New Jersey; the Henry Mountains of Utah; the Bushveld Igneous Complex of South Africa; Shiprock in New Mexico; the Ardnamurchan intrusion in Scotland; and the Sierra Nevada Batholith of California.
The geology of England is mainly sedimentary. The youngest rocks are in the south east around London, progressing in age in a north westerly direction. The Tees–Exe line marks the division between younger, softer and low-lying rocks in the south east and the generally older and harder rocks of the north and west which give rise to higher relief in those regions. The geology of England is recognisable in the landscape of its counties, the building materials of its towns and its regional extractive industries.
The geology of County Durham in northeast England consists of a basement of Lower Palaeozoic rocks overlain by a varying thickness of Carboniferous and Permo-Triassic sedimentary rocks which dip generally eastwards towards the North Sea. These have been intruded by a pluton, sills and dykes at various times from the Devonian Period to the Palaeogene. The whole is overlain by a suite of unconsolidated deposits of Quaternary age arising from glaciation and from other processes operating during the post-glacial period to the present. The geological interest of the west of the county was recognised by the designation in 2003 of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as a European Geopark.
Allolee to Walltown is the name given to a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Northumberland, England. The site, which follows the path of a section of Hadrian's Wall, is notable for an unusually wide range of grassland types growing on thin soil above the Whin Sill, a rock formation peculiar to the Northern Pennines.
Bamburgh Coast and Hills is the name given to a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) on the coast of north Northumberland, England. The site is one of the longest-standing SSSIs in England, having been listed since 1954, and displays the interaction of a fluid magma rock, now known as the Whin Sill, interacting with older sedimentary rock. Coastal erosion at the site enables sections of the geological strata to be seen. In turn, the soil associated with the Whin Sill gives rise to a distinct pattern of vegetation which on its own merits is at this site found notable.
The geology of Northumberland in northeast England includes a mix of sedimentary, intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks from the Palaeozoic and Cenozoic eras. Devonian age volcanic rocks and a granite pluton form the Cheviot massif. The geology of the rest of the county is characterised largely by a thick sequence of sedimentary rocks of Carboniferous age. These are intruded by both Permian and Palaeogene dykes and sills and the whole is overlain by unconsolidated sediments from the last ice age and the post-glacial period. The Whin Sill makes a significant impact on Northumberland's character and the former working of the Northumberland Coalfield significantly influenced the development of the county's economy. The county's geology contributes to a series of significant landscape features around which the Northumberland National Park was designated.
Burnfoot River Shingle and Wydon Nabb is the name given to a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Northumberland, North East England. Burnfoot River Shingle is a calaminarian grassland on the River South Tyne where the local flora is influenced by high levels of naturally occurring heavy metals. Wydon Nabb is an escarpment displaying the Haltwhistle Dyke, a magmatic intrusion of igneous dolerite set amidst sedimentary sandstone and shale.
Longhoughton Quarry is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in north Northumberland in North East England. The site is a now disused quarry which yielded whinstone, a hard dark rock associated in Northumberland with the Whin Sill.
High Cup Gill, almost a geometrically perfect U-shaped chasm, is a valley deeply incised into the Pennine scarp to the northeast of Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria and within the North Pennines AONB in northern England. It is considered to be glacial in origin, ice having over-ridden the area during successive ice ages. To its southeast is Murton Fell whilst Dufton Fell is to the north.
The geology of national parks in Britain strongly influences the landscape character of each of the fifteen such areas which have been designated. There are ten national parks in England, three in Wales and two in Scotland. Ten of these were established in England and Wales in the 1950s under the provisions of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. With one exception, all of these first ten, together with the two Scottish parks were centred on upland or coastal areas formed from Palaeozoic rocks. The exception is the North York Moors National Park which is formed from sedimentary rocks of Jurassic age.
The geology of Northumberland National Park in northeast England includes a mix of sedimentary, intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks from the Palaeozoic and Cenozoic eras. Devonian age volcanic rocks and a granite pluton form the Cheviot massif. The geology of the rest of the national park is characterised largely by a thick sequence of sedimentary rocks of Carboniferous age. These are intruded by Permian dykes and sills, of which the Whin Sill makes a significant impact in the south of the park. Further dykes were intruded during the Palaeogene period. The whole is overlain by unconsolidated sediments from the last ice age and the post-glacial period.
Volcanic and igneous plumbing systems (VIPS) consist of interconnected magma channels and chambers which are responsible for the production, storage and transportation of magma in Earth's crust. Volcanic plumbing systems can be found in all active tectonic settings, such as mid-oceanic ridges, subduction zones, and mantle plumes, when magmas generated in continental lithosphere, oceanic lithosphere, and in the sub-lithospheric mantle are transported. Magma is first generated by partial melting, followed by segregation and extraction from the source rock to separate the melt from the solid. As magma propagates upwards, a self-organised network of magma channels develops, transporting the melt from lower crust to upper regions. Channelled ascent mechanisms include the formation of dykes and ductile fractures that transport the melt in conduits. For bulk transportation, diapirs carry a large volume of melt and ascent through the crust. When magma stops ascending, or when magma supply stops, magma emplacement occurs. Different mechanisms of emplacement result in different structures, including plutons, sills, laccoliths and lopoliths.
