Southern Pennines Research Articles

Breeding Distribution of the Twite in Central Britain

The range of the Twite in central Britain has contracted during the present century. Its headquarters today are the Southern Pennines, where it feeds in the upland pastures and nests in a variety of moorland habitats. This investigation reports on its present status and distribution, and describes in detail the bird's roosting, feeding and nesting habits, covering in general its ecological adaptation to this bleak and often inhospitable environment.

Studies on Southern Pennine Peats: V. Direct Observations on Peat Erosion and Peat Hydrology at Featherbed Moss, Derbyshire

Studies on Southern Pennine Peats: V. Direct Observations on Peat Erosion and Peat Hydrology at Featherbed Moss, Derbyshire

The preservation of the Neogene Brassington Formation of the southern Pennines and its bearing on the evolution of Upland Britain

The Brassington Formation of the southern Pennines comprises a succession of sands, gravels and clays, the youngest beds of which contain Lower Pliocene fossil plants. These strata are generally considered to have foundered into the Carboniferous Limestone through solution subsidence mechanisms. The subsidencc cavities also contain detached marginal blocks of shale, which locally contain Namurian goniatites. Examination of the shale blocks from a number of widely separated localities has revealed that all contain Namurian spore assemblages, datable in some cases as E 2 (Arnsbergian) age. The contact between the shale blocks and oldest sands of the Brassington Formation is unconformable and, characteristically, the latter are seen to rest on zones of lilac-stained weathered shale, representing a pre-subsidence land surface. Evidence is presented which indicates that the Brassington Formation strata are conformable and that the succession represents a single cycle of sedimentation. Because of this conformable relationship it is inferred that this land surface is also of Lower Pliocenc (or Upper Miocene) age. A tacheometric survey of a well-exposed solution subsidence complex at the Bees Nest Pit, Brassington, has enabled structure contour maps to be made of key horizons in the succession. Laboratory tests have been conducted which have attempted to duplicate this structure and so indicate the probable subsidence mcchanisms. Results suggest that subsidence was gradual, with block-by-block removal of the host limestone, and took place in deep, steep-sided pipe-like forms. The depth of subsidence, and hence the elevation of the land surface prior to the deposition of the Brassington Formation, has been determined by estimating the thickness of limestone and Namurian shale which, as suggested by previous research work in the southern Pennines, was once present over the sites of the present subsidence masses. Subsidence can be shown to be of the order of 150–250 m, which implies that the Lower Pliocene land surface of the southern Pennines lay at about 450m O.D. Based on the evidence of the contemporary sea level, the presence of the Lower Pleistocene deposits of s e England, and the sub-Neogene surface of the southern Pennines, a graph has been constructed which suggests broadly that Upland Britain has undergone a regular uplift since the main Alpine episode at a rate of about 1 metre in 15,250 years. In this light, the possible age of other well known planation surfaces is discussed.

Lead and zinc contamination of vegetation in the southern Pennines

Three types of heavy metal tolerant vegetation occurring on the spoil heaps in the Pennines are described sociologically and ecologically and their distribution in the Peak District National Park mapped. Concentrations of lead and zinc extractable from soils by acetic acid are recorded, as are total values for these two heavy metals in the tissues of the main component phanerogams and cryptogams of the vegetation. The range of values for zinc in plant tissues are uniformly higher than those for lead. Concentrations of lead accumulated by these plants are higher than those reported for the accumulation of atmospheric lead. The differences in heavy metal absorption, retention and excretion between ectohydric and myxohydric mosses are shown to be quite distinct. The heavy metals are excreted in the former type and form a crust in periods of drought with up to 6% lead and 1·5% zinc content, whilst, in the latter, the metals tend to be located mainly in the older growth at the base of the moss carpets. The concentrations of the two metal ions in two Peak District rivers proved to be less than 1 ppm in all samples.

An investigation into copper deficiency in cattle in the Southern Pennines. II. Response to copper supplementation

SUMMARYCopper supplementation within the molybdenum-rich areas, on an exploratory basis in 1967 and in controlled trials in 1968, showed mean live-weight responses of 10–70% in dairy followers representing mean herd increases due to copper of 30–70 lb per animal over a 6-month grazing period. With few exceptions control stock showed no clinical symptoms of hypocuprosis.

An investigation into copper deficiency in cattle in the Southern Pennines. I. Identification of suspect areas using geochemical reconnaissance followed by blood copper surveys

SUMMARYSevere clinical copper deficiency has been recognized for some years on a number of farms within an area of 10 square miles in North Staffordshire. Response to injected copper is good and supplementation is now regular practice. One of the causes would appear to be a dietary excess of molybdenum, confirmed in soil and pasture.Geochemical reconnaissance in 1965 delineated areas totalling 60 square miles, including the above area, in which molybdenum occurs in above normal concentrations in stream sediments, rocks, soils and pasture. The source of the molybdenum was found to be black marine shales of Carboniferous age. Within the areas the presence of molybdeniferous soils and pasture is related to local variation in geology and parent material and is in particular affected by drift cover.Blood copper analysis on 350 cattle from 26 herds, excluding those herds in which deficiency was previously recognized, indicated hypocupraemia in 64% within the geochemically denned molybdeniferous area compared to 35 % in nearby control areas. Excluding animals fed minerals, the results were 77 and 37%, respectively. On the whole, deficient animals showed no marked clinical symptoms of hypocuprosis, though unthriftiness and poor fertility are common in the area.

Brassington Formation: a Newly Recognized Tertiary Formation in the Southern Pennines

THE term “pocket deposits” has been somewhat loosely applied to the bodies of sand, clay and gravel which are preserved in solution cavities in the Carboniferous limestone of Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Though the term has been widely used1–7 and has been in general use since the 1890s, it has never been properly defined and may have a different meaning for different persons. We consider that the term is not amenable to proper definition within any stratigraphic code and that it should be discarded.

The Existence of Threshold Hillslopes in the Denudation of the Landscape

The frequency distribution of angles of straight hillslopes in two areas of strong, well-jointed rock, one on Exmoor and the other in the southern Pennines, has been determined through field survey. These histograms are trimodal and angles of 20?-2I?, 25?-27? and 32?-34? are 'characteristic' of both areas. Analysis of the shear-strength characteristics of the waste mantle on these three slope types indicates that these particular angles are very probably limiting angles of stability for these three types of waste mantle. A model of slope evolution based on the history of disintegration of the weathered mantle is suggested and compared with the qualitative ideas of W. M. Davis on the development of hillslopes. THE CONCEPT of grade has probably been one of the most misunderstood and abused in the whole of geomorphology, and yet its main thesis is extremely simple. This is that most denudational processes operating in the landscape tend to create a threshold angle of slope. At angles above this threshold value there is rapid denudation which must produce a slope of a lower angle. This may be achieved either through the flattening of the existing slope until the angle is at the threshold for the operation of the process, or through the retreat of the initial slope and the emergence of a new slope, at the threshold angle, at the base of the slope. Slopes will not be produced at angles below the threshold, since at gentler angles the process can no longer be operative. The universality of this concept was stressed by W. M. Davis1 who applied it to both stream and valley-side slopes. Davis pointed out that denudation may still take place when a slope is graded. The threshold slope depends as much on the calibre of the material upon the slope as on the energy of the process, so that, as the calibre of the material diminishes during geological time, it becomes possible for the angle of the threshold slope to diminish. The concepts of grade and slope decline are thus not incompatible: slope decline according to Davis is simply a diminishing value of the graded slope. The proponents of the school of parallel retreat2 also recognize the concept of the threshold slope. They argue, however, that the fact that a slope may not be lowered below its threshold angle, assuming that the threshold angle is constant over time, still does not preclude denudation. The transport of debris may still take place on a threshold slope but through slope retreat rather than decline. In this way the slope still exists at its threshold angle. It is one of the paradoxes of geomorphology that, although confronted with this almost universal concept of the threshold slope, no attempts have been made to examine whether or

Neogene fossil plants from derbyshire (England)

This is a preliminary account of the fossil plants which occur in the uppermost clays infilling the sink holes in the limestone of the Southern Pennines of Derbyshire, England. The plants are of Late Tertiary age, most probably Pliocene, and are of more than passing significance in terms of dating the 1,000 ft. (305 m) Southern Pennine surface. There is no positive proof that the upper plant-bearing clays are of similar age to the underlying unfossiliferous clays and sands, though the absence of a clearly demonstrable unconformity suggests that all the sands and clays were laid down during one continuous process. The fossil plants are in the form of wood, seeds, leaves, spores, and pollen grains. The most significant of those plants so far determined are briefly described, and a Tertiary Component (groups found in greatest abundance in European Tertiary deposits) is recognized and its status discussed. It consists of the following fossil form-taxa or living genera: Gleicheniidites senonicus, cf. Podocarpus-type, Cryptomeria, Sciadopitys, Pinus haploxylon-type, Tsuga, Carya, Symplocos, Tricolpopollenites aff. microhenrici, T. liblarensis, and T. aff. parmularius. Results of quantitative pollen analysis show that this component accounts for up to 70% of the total flora, and since most of the forms reach their peak in Pliocene deposits in Europe, such an age is suggested for this Derbyshire flora.

The Blanket Bog Vegetation of the Berwyn Mountains, North Wales

This paper presents a preliminary survey of the blanket bog vegetation of the Berwyn Mountains, North Wales, carried out in the summer of 1968. The survey was undertaken with two considerations in mind: (1) The Berwyn blanket bog vegetation is reckoned to be probably the best example of its kind in Wales, but is relatively little known. It forms the southernmost locality in Britain for Rubus chamaemorus, whilst Listera cordata is also widespread. (2) During work on the southern Pennine blanket bogs certain ideas had been formulated which required checking against relatively unmodified blanket bog areas. These ideas are set out later, and their relevance to the Berwyn bogs discussed. The nomenclature throughout the paper follows that used by Clapham, Tutin & Warburg (1962) for angiosperms, Richards & Wallace (1950) and Jones (1958) for bryophytes, and Watson (1953) for lichens.

Geochemical Reconnaisance and Hypocuprosis

Regional geochemical reconnaissance in the Southern Pennines can aid the detecting and mapping of the incidence of hypocuprosis—a trace element disorder of agricultural importance.

The scale and significance of solutional loss from the limestone tract of the southern Pennines

Although this paper is a regional study of some aspects of solutional processes, karst hydrology and limestone landform development, some systematic problems are also considered in the context of the southern Pennines. For instance, it seems that by water sampling at several points it is possible to estimate mean calcium carbonate concentrations for hypothetical catchments of 100 per cent and 50 per cent limestone. These calculations may be more useful for comparative purposes than the observations made at just one point in a study area. Despite wide variations in drainage area and proportions of limestone in these areas, there is a close correlation between drainage area and the estimated mean discharge. This suggests that the underground watershed could approximate to the watershed on the land surface in more places than might be anticipated in a limestone terrain. The limestone appears to return to the surface streamflow at least as much precipitation as the gritstone and impermeable shale outcrops, possibly because the younger strata encircling the limestone outcrop produce a ‘ponded karst’ effect. A denudational loss from the limestone of 75-83 cubic metres per square kilometre per annum is suggested as reasonably typical of present-day processes. Estimates of denudational loss have little bearing on the interpretation of relief unless some idea can be gained of the location of the zone of greatest removal. One of the primary concerns of the paper is the consideration of five main possibilities. It seems that solution of valleys by the near-saturated river water is unlikely. As more limestone is being removed in a single year than the volume of known cave systems, it seems improbable that cave formation is the dominant expression of solutional activity. The implication of high carbonate contents, and of the presence of cave formations at shallow depth in the limestone, is that percolating water does not produce evenly distributed widening of joints and bedding planes to an unlimited depth. The restricted occurrence of ‘clints’ and the slow flow-through rates of karst water rule out the possibility of joint widening at the surface. It is concluded that a considerable proportion of the limestone dissolved is probably removed from the surface, and four independent lines of evidence support this conclusion. One implication of the scale of surface lowering of the limestone is that it may be difficult to recognise relict features in the present-day limestone relief. Doubt is therefore cast on the assumption that erosion surfaces on limestone are well preserved because absence of running water restricts surface erosion. The possible scale of surface lowering could reveal at the surface former underground routes. It is suggested that the undulating plateau surface of the limestone tract of the southern Pennines, although showing many examples of development with little regard to structure, is explicable without reference to Davisian hypotheses of landform evolution. The land surface may have developed by differential solutional lowering during progressive exposure from beneath a protective shale cover. This suggested evolution is analogous to the development of the pedestal of ‘perched blocks’: both depend on the protection which a shale cover affords the underlying limestone. However, if impermeable strata were thin or locally absent, water percolating through the cover may have caused at some points, solution of the unprotected limestone. Lowering of the limestone may therefore have started in some localised areas long before the limestone itself was exposed at the surface. The hollows of the ‘pocket deposits’ could have developed as ‘covered karst’ features in this way.

A Study of Some Escarpment Gaps in the Southern Pennines

GAPS CUT transversely across the resistant strata of a scarpland are well-known landforms. These features, whether dry wind-gaps or water-gaps followed by present-day streams, are commonly regarded as the result of superimposition from an uplifted cover of sediments.1 Alternatively, the precursors of the present-day streams have been interpreted as consequents on the slope of an uplifted marine plain, bevelled across the inclined strata.2 These interpretations can both be termed hypotheses of subsequent strike development, as they share the deduction that strike lowlands are hollowed out subsequently by headward erosion. In a third, contrasting, interpretation, transverse gaps are seen as the subsequent developments, as an older strike stream is dismembered by headward erosion across a divide.3 Such a scheme can be distinguished as a hypothesis of prior strike development, whilst all three can be referred to collectively as cyclic hypotheses. These cyclic hypotheses, however, leave unexplained and sometimes ignore escarpment features frequently associated with transverse gaps in the southern Pennines. These features, summarized diagrammatically in Figure I, show distinct contrasts with conditions on an uplifted coastal plain, as deduced by W. M. Davis.4 The following section of the account describes these features, citing examples from the southern Pennines, especially from the Errwood area on the west limb of the Goyt Trough syncline. Figure 2 illustrates the geology and relief of this area. The account also uses illustrations from well-documented scarplands, as the transverse gaps in the southern Pennines are often little known or undescribed.

A Study of the Charlesworth Landslides near Glossop, North Derbyshire

LANDSLIDES ARE both numerous and conspicuous features of the southern Pennines but their distribution is largely restricted to the valley slopes eroded in the Carboniferous shales and sandstones (Fig. I). Their formation has been favoured because the Mersey and Derwent tributaries have eroded deep valleys with steep slopes in areas where massive sandstones overlie thick beds of less resistant shales, mudstones and flaggy sandstones. The instability of slope resulting from incision under these conditions appears to have been relieved by mass movement at various periods, but so far examination of these features has been confined to rather general comments or to work published only in abstracts. The Geological Survey has recorded the location of many landslides on official maps and offered some comment in the Memoirsl but the main contributions appear to be two unpublished theses by Margaret M. Bass andJ. Street.2 The present paper describes the morphology of two landslide areas at Cown Edge, Charlesworth, near Glossop. The associated landslide scars known locally as Coombes Rocks and Slack Edge (Fig. 2), were produced under comparable conditions and sufficient information is available to suggest the probable causes of the slope failure and the nature of the mechanism at work. An attempt has also been made by using palynological data, to determine the periods when slip movements occurred.3

Britons and the Roman Army. A Study of Wales and the Southern Pennines in the 1st–3rd Centuries. By Grace Simpson, D.Phil. 9½ × 7. Pp. xi + 191 + 3 pls. + 24 figs., folding table. London. The Gregg Press. 1964. £3.

Britons and the Roman Army. A Study of Wales and the Southern Pennines in the 1st–3rd Centuries. By Grace Simpson, D.Phil. 9½ × 7. Pp. xi + 191 + 3 pls. + 24 figs., folding table. London. The Gregg Press. 1964. £3.

Britons and the Roman Army. A study of Wales and the Southern Pennines in the 1st-3rd centuries, by Grace Simpson. London: the Gregg Press, 1964. 191 pp., 3 pls., 24 figs. 60s.

Britons and the Roman Army. A study of Wales and the Southern Pennines in the 1st-3rd centuries, by Grace Simpson. London: the Gregg Press, 1964. 191 pp., 3 <i>pls.</i>, 24 <i>figs.</i> 60<i>s</i>.

Influent Streams of the Southern and Central Pennines

Influent Streams of the Southern and Central Pennines

Highly Quartzose Pebble Gravels in the London Basin

Wooldridge (1927) recognised two subdivisions of the Hertfordshire Pebble Gravels; a third is now described. Its deposits lie at lower levels than the other Pebble Gravels and are therefore younger, and they contain a much higher proportion of pebbles of quartz, quartzite, sandstone and Carboniferous chert. They have been traced discontinuously from the Goring Gap to Bishop's Stortford, and are thought to have been laid down by an ancestral Thames. It is believed that the ‘exotic’ materials came from the Midlands, the southern Pennines and other more remote areas, and were introduced through the Goring Gap. There is some evidence that the deposits are older than the North Sea Drift of East Anglia. It is pointed out that these results provide direct confirmation of a hypothesis of Wooldridge (1938) concerning the very early course of the Thames.

Britons and the Roman Army. A Study of Wales and the Southern Pennines in the 1st-3rd Centuries

Britons and the Roman Army. A Study of Wales and the Southern Pennines in the 1st-3rd Centuries

THE PRE‐PEAT VEGETATION OF THE SOUTHERN PENNINES

SummaryPollen counts from the upper layers of the mineral soil underlying deep blanket peat at two sites in the southern Pennines show a varied assemblage of Late‐glacial and montane species such as Armeria maritima, Thalictnim, Juniperus, and possibly Betula nana, existing in zone VI at 550–610 m. This ‘montane’ flora disappears where the pollen spectrum indicates waterlogging of the soil developing as a result of the increased wetness of climate. Peat formation at these two sites appears to begin at the B.A.T., but pollen counts from other sites in the southern Pennines show that peat may have begun to form elsewhere at any time during zone VIIa, depending on local topography. Corylus pollen values show a pronounced maximum at the close of zone VI, and it is suggested that extensive hazel thickets may have formed in sheltered gullies and valley heads; at one of the two sites very high values of fern spores are also encountered in the uppermost layers of mineral soil. The abrupt decline in the fern spore values and equally abrupt changes in values of other pollen types at the level of the peat‐mineral soil junction suggest that there may possibly be a gap in the pollen record at the end of zone VI, resulting from local soil erosion.