Main road destroyed by Mam Tor landslide скачать в хорошем качестве

Main road destroyed by Mam Tor landslide

The distinctive scar of Mam Tor rising above Castleton in the Peak District was formed by a landslide arounf 4,000 years ago. But the story of the Mam Tor landslide isn't just ancient history - it is still moving! The cliffs which form the main scar of the landslide are made of Carboniferous turbidites (alternating beds of sandstone and shale - more of that another week!) and they sit on the finely laminated and quite weak Edale Shales. During extended periods of wet weather the water which gets trapped in the impervious shales can become sufficiently pressurised to lubricate slip and the whole mass of the landslide is creeping down slope by up to 1 m every year. During the 19th century a road was built over the landslide between Castleton and Edale to avoid the steep and narrow Whinnats Pass, but despite repeated efforts to maintain it the road finally closed in the late 1970's. You can see the many layers of road surface and foundations in the active slip surfaces which record each sliding event. As well as being one of the best examples of rotational slumping and active slipping in the UK you can see many details of normal faulting dynamics in the active surfaces.