Christians Aware Summer School 2025 at Parcevall Hall - Geology of the location on the Craven Fault.

This is the geology background for the post which  I wrote about this Summer School

Barbara Butler invited me to  the Christians Aware Summer School at Parceval Hall, near Appletreewick in the Yorkshire Dales. In 2023 I had visited and run a session on lichen identification. 

"Come on the Sunday night" she said. "We are going to launch the book "Rooted in Hope - A Christians Aware Resource towards Building Biodiversity - for which you wrote the chapter on lichens. Then lead us on a trip on the Monday."

I wanted to take the group somewhere really local. Yes, they have visited Malham and Settle before - but there are so many lovely places near Parcevall Hall. Where could I take them? 

I dug deep into my book piles and dug out the two brilliant books fo the British Cave Research Organisation edited by Tony Waltham and David Lowe - so glad that Tony Waltham had sold me copies.

How does Parcevall Hall fit into the geology? - especially related to the geology of Settle and Malham Tarn that I (And all the local Settle people who read this blog post)  know so well.

What is the point of coming from Wakefield or Falmouth all the way to Parcevall Hall if you cannot find out about the geology? (We also had three people from Kenya - but they missed my first evening of condensed geology talk.)

The layers of rock around here consist of at the bottom 500MYR old slate, the Thick beds of 350MYR old limestone then on top of that a repeating cycle of rocks-limestone,sandstone,shale, imestone, sandstone, shale (up to 7 times in some places) 

So

Settle and Malham Tarn lie on the Craven Faults - South, Mid and North Craven Faults. These between them go all the way from the south end of Gragareth and Kingsdale in the west to Greenhow and Coldstones Cut above Stump Cross Caverns and Pateley Bridge  in the East - 50m or over 30miles.

Hence I can apply the geology of Settle and of Malham to the geology of Parcevall Hall 16 miles(25KM) directly to the East:

500 MYR (million years) ago the land under the south of England was near the south pole and the north of Scotland was near the north pole and in between was a big muddy sea. Over the course of time the South of England moved up over the equator and the mud was compressed and formed some huge fold mountains as big as the Himalayas. The mud was compressed and with the heat and pressure turned into slate - Like the slate we see in the Lake District). The Mountains got worn down and the area was under the sea again. this time it was a warm clear sea.  Algae and sea creatures grew in the warm water and their remains fell to the bottom and formed thick bands of limestone - now called the Great Scar Limestone that we see at Gordale Scar. 

Then over a long period of time the land to the south slipped down, the land to the north rose up - this left a big cliff. But over the course of time the top of the taller rock to the north go worn down - so the millstone grit and the Yoredale series got worn away by glaciers, rivers and weather.  So Limestone is at the surface to the north is Limestone, but the land at the surface to the south is Millstone grit.

This is the geology background for the post with  I wrote about this event