GEOLOGY 



called Alport Towers, and has been formed by masses of Shale Grit 

 which have slipped down from the hills above. 



The ridge between Lose Hill and Mam Tor is capped by the Shale 

 Grit. The beds dip north, and at Castleton, a short distance further 

 south, we find the Mountain Limestone dipping under the Limestone 

 Shales and Shale Grit. In the Edale valley the river Noe has cut down 

 through the plateau of Shale Grit to the Limestone Shales below it. An 

 anticline runs along the north flank of the valley, and on that side the 

 Limestone Shales are brought out by the rise of the beds. Good sections 

 of these grits may be seen in the ' cloughs ' which run down from 

 Kinder Scout into Edale. 



At right angles to the anticline above mentioned, another runs 

 through Edale Chapel and Mam Tor in a north-westerly and south-easterly 

 direction. This anticline if produced would pass through the middle of 

 the Mountain Limestone district, and it has been considered that it 

 marks the direction of the Pennine upheaval. A dome shaped mass of 

 the Yoredale Shales is brought up in the middle of the valley, and the 

 sandstones of Mam Tor are raised up to a greater height than the Shale 

 Grit of Lose Hill. Mam Tor, or the Shivering Mountain, with its 

 precipitous face of some 200 feet in height, consists of sandstones inter- 

 calated with shales. In the latter Goniatites and Posidoniella have been 

 found. A great part of the hill has fallen and carried away with it a 

 portion of the Roman entrenchment which was made round the hill not 

 far from its summit. At the foot of the tor the Yoredale Shales are 

 faulted against the Mountain Limestone near the Blue John mine. The 

 present turnpike road from Castleton to Chapel-en-le-Frith and Buxton 

 passes over masses of grit and shale which have at some time slipped 

 from the face or base of Mam Tor. These hummocks form an insecure 

 basis for a road, as, from the shape of the ground, there is nothing to 

 prevent further slipping. 



In the winter of 1901-2 small portions of the road slipped, and 

 some ominous cracks which were present when these pages were being 

 written indicated that some further portions of the road might slide 

 down the hill at the next ground thaw. The alternation of sandstones 

 and shales has a tendency to produce landslips, especially when the rock 

 dips into the valley. Perhaps the most striking of such landslips is 

 Alport Tower. The eastern bank of the river Alport is covered with 

 landslips formed by masses of Shale Grit which have slid down from the 

 hill above. In one place the fallen mass is about 28 chains in length 

 and 12 in breadth. At Coumbs Wood near Matlock the outlier of 

 Shale Grit is in the form of an anticline, the beds on both sides dipping 

 away from the hill. On both sides of the hill large masses of the grit 

 have slipped away into the valley below. 



The fourth, or Kinder Scout Grit, consists of two thick beds of 

 sandstone separated by shale. The lower one dies away on Bamford 

 Edge, and is not found further south. The upper varies from a coarse 

 grit to a fine grained sandstone, and generally forms bold craggy cliffs 



21 



