White Path Moss, Stanage Edge

Originally uploaded for the Guesswhere UK group.

This is a view NNW across White Path Moss from Stanage Edge in the Peak District, at Nat Grid Ref. SK 244 836. Stanedge Pole, a wooden guide post mounted in a cluster of boulders is visible on the skyline towards the left side.

White Path Moss is an extensive flat area of peat bogs and watery pools, very difficult to cross except on a very subtly elevated shallow ridge known as Friar's Ridge.

It is generally accepted that this is a nivation platform, a.k.a. cryoturbation platform. These form where a permanent but relatively shallow snow-patch (as distinct from an ice-sheet) has existed for an extended period of time, perhaps thousands of years. They are well-known from periglacial environments, past and present-day. Beneath the more-or-less stagnant snow-patch, there can be considerable freeze-thaw action, breaking up the top surface of the underlying bedrock and causing it to flow slowly down even the shallowest of slopes. The effect is for this flow material to 'fill in' any pre-existing hollows and generally smooth out the existing landscape, ultimately tending to become a flat surface. In this locality the nivation platform is a broadly linear feature, parallel to the outcrop of Stanage Edge and set back from it by as much as 1.5 km.

Whatever the reasons for the origin, I was really struck by the colours up here on this bright December day.

Best viewed large....