Carboniferous Limestone Flashcards
Distribution
Found across the UK in bands, forms most of Pennines hills
Characteristics
Physically strong, chemically weak
Well jointed
Bedding planes between beds
Surface feature: what is a limestone pavement?
Blocks (clints) and jointed gaps called grykes
What are swallow holes?
Are formed when chemical weathering widens surface joints
What are dry valleys?
Formed by a river during a wetter period in the past
What is resurgence?
When water emerges from underground
Underground features: what is a cavern?
When a narrow gorge collapses forming a large underground cave
What’s a swallow hole?
The river flows down the swallow hole and widens the joints and bedding
How are stalactites formed?
An icicle like calcite feature hanging reform the cavern roof
How are stalagmites formed?
A stumpy calcite formed on a cavern floor
What is a pillar?
When a stalactite and stalagmites join
What is a curtain?
A broad deposit of calcite formed when water emerges along a crack in the cave.
Uses
Cement
Building
Sheep farming
Tourism
What is the London aquifer
Rocks underneath form a basin called a sync line, water soaks into the chalk and the water percolates to form a reservoir.
Advantages of quarrying?
Hope quarry,employs 200 peeps
Employee income is spent in local area, boosting business
After extraction will become a nature reserve
Disadvantages of quarrying
Pollution Disturbs locals Eyesore Congestion Affects wildlife Pollutes rivers
Facts about hope quarry
1.5 mill tonnes of cement makes 2 mill tonnes of limestone Trees have been planted Now managed as a wetland reserve Employs 200 local peeps Quarry has 30-35 years of reserves left Lafarge group
Hope quarry reducing impacts
Trees planted 700 to reduce 1 mill tonnes of co2 each year
Efforts to reduce dust
£15 mill on public transport
Using rail as opposed to lorries, 57 lorries is 1 train
Paxton pits restoration
Expanding from 77 hectares to more 280 hectares
27km of footpaths
Nature reserve
River
The Eden project
2 and a Half years and £140 mill turning it into a park
Used to educate visitors on how to maintain a green sustainable lifestyle
Formation
Sedimentary rock formed in the Carboniferous period about 340 mill years ago
