Earthwatcher's photos with the keyword: peat

Gathering Hill is a spur on the southern edge of Shelf Moor, itself part of the extensive Bleaklow massif in the Dark Peak. This is a northward view from the A57 Snake Pass at its highest point at 512 m elevation. This is also where the Pennine Way crosses the road.

Looking over White Path Moss towards Stanage Edge and Stanage Pole (but lost in the mist). 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.

Originanally uploaded for the Guesswhere UK group. A rather old photo taken with an early digital camera, hence rather poor resolution. This is the Skipsea Withow Mere and the location is the Withow Gap on the Holderness coast in East Yorkshire. The rapidly eroding low cliffs have cut a section through the Withow Mere which is a former (post glacial) lake formed in an ice-hollow on the till ('boulder clay') surface. The lake became filled with both drifted and in-situ vegetation which accounts for the peat we see today. The grey pebbly deposit in the foreground is the Skipsea Till, a 'boulder clay' of debris bulldozed by the Devensian ice. Were it not for the glacial till, the area of Holderness would not exist and would be completely under the sea. The Skipsea Withow Mere is a SSSI. More information here: www.york.ac.uk/inst/chumpal/EAU-reps/EAU94-61.pdf

Uploaded as a clue to the GWUK photo here.... www.ipernity.com/doc/earthwatcher/39023396

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....

The southern end of Stanage Edge, the longest of the Eastern Edges, in the Peak District National Park, Derbyshire. Stanage Edge is comprised of Rivelin Grit (aka Chatsworth Grit), Namurian age, Upper Carboniferous. The coarse-grained gritstone was deposited in a series of delta distributary channels. The gritstone is normally strongly cross-bedded, and intraformational erosion surfaces are common. The Edge has been worked for millstones in several places and examples such as these can be found in many places, lying where they were abandoned when the demand for imported French stones rose in the latter part of the 19th century.

The top of Stanage Edge, the longest of the Eastern Edges, in the Peak District National Park, Derbyshire. Stanage Edge is comprised of Rivelin Grit (aka Chatsworth Grit), Namurian age, Upper Carboniferous. The coarse-grained gritstone was deposited in a series of delta distributary channels.

Situated immediately east of the southern part of Stanage Edge, 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.