Cleveland Hills Research Articles

Palaeotemperatures, thermal modelling and depth of burial studies in northern and eastern England

SUMMARY It is widely agreed that Mesozoic rocks formerly were present over much of northern England, well beyond the erosional limits of their present-day outcrops to the east and west of the Lake District and the Pennines. However, the extent, age, lithology, sequence and thickness of these vanished rocks have proved to be a controversial subject. The principal methods employed to determine the burial and thermal history of the region, and to estimate the thickness and nature of the eroded rocks, are (1) extrapolation of stratigraphical information from the preserved strata, (2) variations in rock physical properties with depth in boreholes and (3) depth conversion of palaeotemperature measurements and estimates from apatite fission track analysis, diagenetic mineral assemblages and alteration of organic matter. The exploration for oil and gas in the region and adjacent offshore areas provided a spur to such investigations. All the methods used are, to a greater or lesser extent, dependent on unverifiable assumptions. The results obtained have been somewhat contradictory, with estimates of the thickness of eroded Mesozoic overburden in the Northern Pennines, the Lake District and the Cleveland Hills ranging from a few hundred metres to more than 3000 m. Early modelling studies of the palaeotemperature data, derived from apatite fission track analysis on samples from the Lake District and some adjacent parts of the Northern Pennines, have suggested that the minimum thickness of Mesozoic rocks over much of this area was in excess of 3000 m. However, a more recent investigation which took into account the locally high heat flows in this area, and made use of more refined methods of converting palaeotemperatures to palaeodepths, indicates an eroded overburden thickness of only c . 1500 m, a value consistent with regional stratigraphical information and some sonic log studies. The depth conversion of some palaeotemperature data from the East Midlands Shelf and the Cleveland Basin, where heat flow is somewhat lower than in the Lake District, is reassessed. Several modelling options have been considered. The palaeotemperature data are consistent with the removal of c. 2500 m of post-Middle Jurassic overburden from the central parts of the inverted Cleveland Basin. Similar conclusions have been reached from several sonic log studies. Regional stratigraphical trends suggest that it is unlikely that all of these eroded rocks were of Mesozoic (Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous) age, and it seems more probable that up to c. 1000 m were of Early Cenozoic age. Modelling of palaeotemperature data, combined with regional stratigraphical information and sonic log compaction studies, suggest that the maximum thickness of Chalk on the East Midlands Shelf, before erosion, was c. 700 m. The modelling is unable to discriminate between alternative explanations for the inferred thicknesses of missing strata from the East Midlands Shelf (Cleethorpes and Biscathorpe boreholes): either (1) the missing rocks were all Late Cretaceous Chalk, or (2) the missing rocks were mainly Chalk, partially eroded in end-Cretaceous/Early Cenozoic times, and overlain by a few tens of metres of Early Cenozoic strata.

The territory of ritual: cross-ridge boundaries and the prehistoric landscape of the Cleveland Hills, northeast England

On the North Yorkshire Moors, in northeast England, is a series of linear boundaries which are characteristically placed across upland spurs and promontories. Survey and excavation suggest that these boundaries operated in conjunction with natural features to define areas of the prehistoric landscape which may have been concerned with ritual during the final Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.

The Callovian succession (excluding Cornbrash) in the western and northern parts of the Yorkshire Basin

A description is given of the Kellaways Rock succession in the Howardian, Hambleton, western Tabular and Cleveland Hills, and of the limited Langdale Beds and Hackness Rock exposures running through the centre of this region. Data from this paper and from the author's previous work on the Callovian are combined to give a synthesis of conditions and events during this major part of the Callovian Stage in Yorkshire. Chamosite oolite forms an important constituent of the Yorkshire Callovian, and its mode of formation is discussed in detail. Three cycles of sedimentation can be recognised, with marine influence in each cycle increasing upwards, and culminating in the lowest two cycles in periods of uplift and erosion, now seen to have affected most of the Yorkshire Basin.

Irish Labour in the North of England

Befor the mechanization of harvest an extra source of labour at this time was a necessity. As early as the fourteenth century the Statute of Labourers specifically allowed the migration of labour from the Pennines, and from Craven in Yorkshire to assist with the harvest in other districts. In the seventeenth century, Henry Best of Elmswell in the East Riding of Yorks, sent to Malton to hire ‘moor folks’ from the Cleveland hills, and set up beds and bedsteads in his folks chamber, his Kiln and any other convenient house for their accommodation. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the hand textile workers (men, women and children) of the clothing districts of the West Riding, tramped to the fields of the Vale of York, the East Riding, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire to assist in gathering the harvest, taking a working holiday at a time when supplies of wool were low, and the new wool clip was not yet processed.

Proglacial Lake Eskdale after Sixty Years

SIXTY YEARS ago, P. F. Kendall published a thorough interpretation of 'glacial retreat' in the Cleveland Hills,1 and the ideas contained in his two papers on the subject met with little opposition at that time.2 The anomalous valleys, described as overflow channels, were soon recognized in other areas and used as indicators of the former existence of proglacial lakes. In the succeeding thirty years, many studies in particular areas of this country3 used Kendall's methods of interpretation to elucidate the mode of recession of the ice margin during deglaciation. In the absence of any more recent research on the North York Moors, the sequence proposed by Kendall is still quoted in textbooks of geomorphology4, although some other areas which were originally considered in the light of Kendall's interpretation have been reexamined.5 The distribution of proglacial lakes in north-east Yorkshire as proposed by Kendall6 is illustrated in Figure I. Later workers suggested slight amendments to this interpretation. F. Elgee7 offered some new evidence concerning the glaciation and subsequent history of north Cleveland, but adhered closely to the ideas proposed by Kendall. J. T. Sewell8 proposed a minor elaboration for part of Eskdale, while work on the drifts of north Cleveland9 also followed the established interpretation. In I956, a paper on north-west Cleveland10 marked the beginning of renewed interest in the North York Moors and in the problems which they present. In this account, R. H. Best retained the conventional interpretation of overflow channels and the maximum limits of the last ice sheet as proposed by Kendall. However, the recognition of a more complete sequence of overflow channels led Best to invoke two glaciations to account for the channels present in north-west Cleveland. More recently, a brief account has been produced of the Stonegate valley11 and the landforms described, taken to indicate the former presence of stagnant ice. Finally, in a description of eastern Eskdale,12 the present author suggested that the ice was finally stagnant during deglaciation. This interpretation differs from that proposed in I902 in that Kendall envisaged deglaciation accompanied by the recession of an active ice margin towards the north-east. In eastern Eskdale as a whole, it is now thought that two distinct stages of meltwater drainage were followed by stagnant ice conditions. At the head of the Stonegate valley (Fig. 2), three minor stages of meltwater drainage can be recognized, but these do not necessarily correspond directly with the stages recognized elsewhere in eastern Eskdale. Reconstruction of the gradients of former ice sheets,13 using the gradients of the marginal drainage channels, suggests that the second major stage at Goathland corresponds to the three minor stages identified at the head of Stonegate. Although this interpretation differs from that proposed by Kendall for eastern Eskdale, it does not necessarily affect the interpretation of a proglacial lake in the remainder of Eskdale, at least during the early stages of deglaciation. During the later stages, when the ice in eastern Eskdale was fragmented,14 a proglacial lake could not have been

The Ancient Forest of Blackamore

The wildness and desolation of moorland, even when seen on a fine summer’s day, can give an overpowering impression of land untamed by man, land in which man is the interloper and not the master. The word primaeval usually comes to mind and, indeed, even modern geography books sometimes describe these areas as the last strongholds of wild nature. It is recognized, of course, that man burns the moor at intervals to facilitate turf-cutting or to provide better conditions for his animals whether sheep or grouse, but as this practice has been going on from time immemorial and the moorland still looks the same, it is tacitly assumed that it has always been the same.How far from the truth this assumption can be has recently been shown by an investigation into some archaeological sites on the watershed of the Cleveland Hills. Such sites contain organic remains, particularly pollen and charcoal, which reflect the contemporary ecological conditions. The conclusions reached here do not necessarily apply to all moorland areas, of course; the Cleveland Hills receive less rain than moorlands further west, so their early history may have been different. Today this relative dryness is reflected in the predominance of heather (Calluna) rather than the plants of blanket bog. Nevertheless, these North Yorkshire Moors today have as strong an atmosphere of wilderness as anywhere in the North of England. To anyone who knows them the old name of Blackamore graphically expresses their present character.

WESTWARD PROGLACIAL DRAINAGE IN CLEVELAND

Summary Although the proglacial drainage of the Cleveland Hills has been well documented by Kendall, relatively little is known about the corresponding system in the lower areas of Cleveland. From a detailed study of an aligned sequence of overflow channels existing there, it has now been possible to demonstrate how proglacial drainage from Kildale and north Cleveland flowed in a generally westward direction into the Vale of York. Evidence is given to show that this low level drainage was closely associated with the eastern margin of the Cleveland and Vale of York glacier during the last glaciation of the district, and that certain high level overflow channels in the Hambleton and Cleveland Hills are the relics of proglacial drainage systems of one or more earlier glacial episodes.

GLACIAL AND POST-GLACIAL GEOLOGY OF MIDDLESBROUGH AND THE TEES ESTUARY

Summary The area described has few surface features, but as a result of collection of borehole data, and observation of excavations, a plan and series of sections have been drawn showing the extent and character of the glacial and post-glacial deposits in the Tees estuary and surrounding area. The boulder clays, with variable beds of sand, taper out on the slopes of the Cleveland Hills. A major feature of the area is a dissected bed of late-glacial laminated clay, associated with a marginal shore-line. The outline shape of the early post-glacial river gorge is now known, also the character of the alluvial deposits which have filled it, and which now form the river flood-plain. The alluvium includes a peat-bed immediately below Ordnance Datum level. Detailed observation of the alluvial filling of a minor branch valley has revealed a marine bed at a level which proves a stage when the sea was about thirty feet above its present level. The variation in time of sea-level, indicated by the post-glacial deposits, is discussed.

A Deep Bore in the Cleveland Hills

Carboniferous.—The Carboniferous rocks in the bore have a thickness of 2,443 feet, and extend from 3,840 to 6,283 feet.

A Deep Bore in the Cleveland Hills

This bore, a recent trial for oil, is situated on the high moorland, rising to just over 1,300 feet above sea-level, in the south-western corner of the Cleveland Hills, where the imposing Jurassic escarpment overlooking the Triassic lowland between Thirsk and Northallerton, suddenly forsakes its northern trend to strike eastwards for about nine miles, before resuming a more northerly course towards Guisborough and the North Sea.

THE GLACIATION OF NORTH CLEVELAND

INTRODUCTION This paper records the glaciation of an area which includes the lower Tees Basin and the northern Cleveland Hills and extends from Saltburn in the east to Yarm in the west, and from Greatham in the north to Stokesley in the south. The greater part of this area lies in North Cleveland. The upland portion of the area, the north-west extremity of the Cleveland Hills, attains a height of over 1000 ft. on Guisborough Moor. The outlying portions of this Jurassic plateau, Eston Hill, Upleatham Hill and Airy Hill reach heights respectively of 800 ft., 585 ft. and 639 ft. O.D. Each of these features together with the main plateau region consists of Liassic shales capped by massive Estuarine sandstones. Where they have not been protected by a covering of glacial drift the shales have weathered easily to form steep northerly slopes which have not been favourable for the retention of glacial drainage phenomena. Glacial drift exists on the slopes of these Cleveland Hills to varying heights. It has been traced along the south side of Roseberry Topping at 800 ft. O.D., on Bousdale Head at 700 ft. O.D., and on Eston Hill at 600 ft. O.D. Isolated drift pebbles have been found near the Nab on Eston Moor at 800 ft. O.D., and within 40 ft. of the summit of Roseberry Topping at about 1020 ft. There is little doubt, therefore, that invading ice stood up to about 1000 ft. O.D., but that subsequent denudation has removed practically ...

A SKELETON OF ELK (Cervus alces) FROM NEASHAM NEAR DARLINGTON

The Tees between Piercebridge and Stockton is one of the most erratic of English rivers and this winding course results from the quantity of drift of various sorts dropped on the low ground by the northern ice as it retreated from the north-west slope of the Cleveland Hills. At Neasham on the Durham side of the river some 4 miles south-east of Darlington a varied series of glacial deposits is exposed in two or three cuttings belonging to the Neasham Brick & Tile Company. One of these shows current bedded glacial gravels; another is brown boulder clay. On top of the latter deposit in one part of the quarry there is a small basin of peat in which a practically complete skeleton of Elk has recently been found. A tree on the edge of the quarry was blown down on June 17th, 1939 when a mass of bones fell out and at the same time the slip exposed a good section of the small one-time pond or mere in which the bones had lain and been very well preserved. Mr. F, Dallimore, the curator of the Darlington Public Library, immediately secured the find and the bones are now in that institution. For the accompanying photograph of the head of the animal at the time of the discovery we are indebted to the Editor of the “Northern Echo.” The other antler is missing and is surmised to be still embedded in the peat. It is hoped to secure it and other …

A RHINOCEROS BONE FROM BRIERTON, NEAR WEST HARTLEPOOL

During November 1938 a large bone broken at the upper end, 12 inches long and 5 1/4 inches wide, was found at a depth of 20 feet in a sand and gravel quarry at Brierton and sent to the Gray Art Gallery and Museum at West Hartlepool, With the kind assistance of Miss D. M. Bate of the British Museum, Natural History, it was identified as a humerus of R. tichorinus or antiquitatis . It was found to agree very closely with a similar bone from Kent’s Cavern, Torquay. Brierton (or Brearton, on older maps) 2 1/2 miles south-west of West Hartlepool is situated where the Magnesian Limestone and Triassic red beds adjoin. This junction, whether it be a fault or not, is entirely concealed by drift but the general slope of the country is a gentle one to the south or south-east. The last ice sheet melting as it retreated northwards from the slopes of the Cleveland Hills deposited clay, gravel, and sand in the form of a series of low irregular scarcely noticeable mounds which attain an altitude of only a little above 100 feet above sea level. Two quarries have been opened by Mr. T. Gallimore in these gravelly and sandy deposits; the one to the south-west where the bone was found shows about 30 feet of very regularly bedded sand and gravel overlain and partly replaced at the east end of the quarry by some 10 feet of brown stony boulder clay. The sand is much current …

THE TECTONIC STRUCTURE OF THE HOWARDIAN HILLS AND ADJACENT AREAS

Yorkshire can be subdived into structural units based on the control exerted by various fold-lines or block-faulting movements. Certain difficulties are encountered when the structures in the eastern part of the county are examined. The north-eastern unit, the Cleveland Hills, is dominated by the large east-west anticline which passes out to sea at Robin Hood’s Bay. The influence of this fold is felt as far south as the Wolds, where it has impressed a southerly dip on the Chalk. The Upper Cretaceous rocks have, however, been influenced by other lines of movement for the quarter-basin structure they show involves the effect of a fold with Malvernian trend—presumably the Pennine fold. North-west of the Wolds and south-east of Cleveland lie the Howardian Hills, “one of the most intricate pieces of geology in N.E. Yorkshire.”1 The hills are crossed by a complicated network of faults, while folding- is apparently non-existent. According to Fox-Strangways, these faults represent a great east-west dislocation “which, finding the strata thinnest and weakest along the Howardian range of hills, has shattered them, causing the irregularity of outcrop.”2 The present paper is an attempt to elucidate and explaim the structures and to show their bearing on the tectonice structure of the areas. The Faulting. The northern boundary of the area is marked by two important faults forming the Coxwold-Gilling valley. Starting in the Magnesian Limestone north of Ripon, they continue in an east-west direction across the Vale of York maintaining parallelism for a considerable distance, but near Coxwold ...

Certain glacial phenomena in the central Tweed area

As much of our paper deals with phenomena connected with glacier lakes, perhaps a short historical reference to one or two notable British examples would not be out of place. Firstly, there occurs the glacial lake of Glen Roy with its parallel roads or strand lines. The interpretation of these phenomena evoked much discussion until, in 1863, Jameson1 furnished an explanation which gained acceptance. He showed that Agassiz was correct in claiming that the strands represented different lake levels, the lake being due to a glacier crossing the mouth of the glen and impounding the drainage waters. Next there is the evidence brought forward by Mr Dugald Bell,2 and later by Mr James Geikie,3 in his Great Ice Age , showing that a lake had occupied the Glasgow area in late glacial times. This had been probably caused by a glacier advancing down the Vale of Leven and damming the Clyde near Bowling. The overflow waters from this lake are believed to have flowed along the valley which the Glasgow and S.W. Railway follows by Lochwinnoch and Dalry. In 1901 Kendall and Muff 4 published a paper dealing with a system of lakes held up by glaciers in the Cheviot Hills. One of the most interesting papers on glacial phenomena, however, is undoubtedly that dealing with a system of lakes in the Cleveland Hills, by Prof. Kendall,5 published in 1902. It is a very instructive paper to anyone studying this branch of glaciology. The author not only describes the different lake

VII. Notes on the Stratigraphy of the Marske Quarry

A range of elevated ground starts from the sea-coast in the lofty cliffs of Huntcliff and Boulby, and, striking westwards, divides into two lines: the northern forming the outlying hills of Upleathan and Eston, the southern passing to the south of the great inlet in which the town of Guisborough lies, where it forms that part of the Cleveland Hills known as Guisborough Moor. The Marske Quarry is situated on the northern face of the Upleatham Outlier, about a mile from the village of Marske-by-the-Sea. The quarry has not been worked for the last twenty years, and parts of it are inaccessible through fallen rubbish. Its altitude above sea-level is 500 feet. The complete succession of the Lower Oolites in Yorkshire tabulated by Fox-Strangways is as follows, in descending order:— Cornbrash. Upper Estuarine Series. Grey Limestone Series. Middle Estuarine Series. Millepore Bed. Lower Estuarine Series, with Ellerbeck Bed. The sequence of the beds in the Marske Quarry, from careful measurements taken of the best-exposed section, is as follows:— Beneath this lowermost bed lies the Dogger. This latter deposit, so useful for demarcation between the Lias and the Oolite in North-East Yorkshire, is not exposed in the quarry, but crops out beneath the sandstone on the flanks of the Upleatham Outlier. The geological hoziron of the Marske Quarry may therefore be fixed as the Lower Oolite, and as belonging to the Lower Estuarine Series

THE GLACIATION OF NORTH CLEVELAND

Read 26th September, 1908. Manuscript received 5th December, 1908. Thanks to the great work of Professor Kendall in the Cleveland area, glacial geologists are now furnished with a key which will enable them to trace the history of the decline of the glaciers which debouched on to the plains of England during the Ice Age. Even in the area which he has made classic, work still remains to be done in deciphering the records of the various stages in the retreat of the ice from its position at maximum extension until it finally vanished from the district. The following notes, therefore, deal with the glacial phenomena produced during the retreat of the ice in North-west Cleveland, and embrace the Upleatham and Eston Outliers, the Guisborough Valley, and the Cleveland Plain of Stokesley. The phenomena to be discussed may be conveniently divided into three groups, corresponding chronologically to three positions of the ice margin, viz.:— 1. Phenomena at the period of maximum extension. 2. Phenomena at the foot of the Cleveland Hills during the retreat. 3. Phenomena connected with a halt of the ice on the Plain of Stokesley. The phenomena at the period of maximum extension have been fully elucidated by Professor Kendall, and are mentioned here so that what follows may be fully understood. There can be little question that he has conclusively established the existence in Cleveland, during the later phases of the Ice Age, of a large glacier that had passed over a part of the Cheviot ...

A System of Glacier-Lakes in the Cleveland Hills

It is now 8 years since I commenced observations upon the Glacial phenomena of the Cleveland area—using the term in its broadest sense as including the whole of the Jurassic mass of North-eastern Yorkshire, but no results were attained in the first 5 years. The investigation, however, of a tract of country on the western edge of the Yale of York familiarized me with many of the more patent signs of old glacier-lakes, especially the phenomena of abandoned overflows, and this experience enabled me to recognize the great Newton-Dale valley as belonging to this category. Following this clue backward, I discovered the great system of lakes and related phenomena now to be described. The progress of the investigation of the area west of the Ouse has been briefly recorded in papers submitted to the British Association, and on various occasions has been communicated to the Yorkshire Geological & Polytechnic Society. A new stimulus to these studies was given by Prof. W. M. Davis, who accompanied me in the examination of a tract of country round Knaresborough, where an extra-morainic diversion of the River Nidd and some other lake-overflows are well displayed. Prof. Davis on that occasion mentioned some work of a like nature which was engaging the attention of Prof. G. K. Gilbert; and I am impelled to mention the fact, as this statement of Prof. Gilbert's views undoubtedly aided me, to how great an extent I am unable to say. II. Modern Extra-Morainic Lakes Whenever a glacier or ice-sheet

Forty Years in a Moorland Parish

THE moorland parish of which Dr. Atkinson writes is the parish of Danby, which lies among the Cleveland Hills, some miles inland from Whitby. Here he has worked as a clergyman for forty-five years. To a man of narrow sympathies and little intellectual curiosity the position might have been trying enough; but in the life of the people, in the aspects of Nature, and in local problems appealing to the antiquary and the historian, Dr. Atkinson has found sources of interest which have never lost their charm. In the present volume he records some reminiscences of the pursuits which have occupied him, and of the impressions which have been made upon him, during all these years; and a very fascinating record it is. He not only has powers of keen and accurate observation, but carries on his researches in a thoroughly scientific spirit; and he is a master of the difficult art of stating problems in a manner that secures attention while they are being gradually solved. His immediate subject is Danby; but if the author had never raised his eyes to look further afield, his readers might soon have felt that he had told them about as much as they wished to know. Facts relating to a particular locality can never be really understood unless they are brought into connection with kindred facts in other parts of the world. This is constantly borne in mind by Dr. Atkinson, and his ample learning enables him to apply the principle in many different ways; so that, when he is talking about Danby, he is often talking at the same time about wide regions of the British Islands, and even about stages of culture through which the greater part of the human race has passed.