BORROWDALE: a classic Lakeland Valley


Exhibits most of the features needed for A2 Upland Glaciation. You will need a map of the valley to point out the features..

The Lake District landscape is the result of several glaciations, most recently the Devensian.

Erosional landscapes still have some of their dramatic sharpness, and the depositional features their ice-moulded forms.

At the height of the last glaciation, little of the NW of England would have projected above the ice. It covered the Cumbrian mountains, and blocked the Vale of Eden. The pattern of ice flow has been deduced from the trend of glacial troughs and drumlins.

Ice emerging from the highland areas was so thick that it covered all low lying areas, leaving behind glacial drift, which was moulded into drumlins in places. Found ail around the Lake District, and southwards towards the Yorkshire Dales e.g. Hellifield, North Yorkshire.

Pattern shows the meeting of various ice sheets as they moved away from the hearth areas.

Ice moved from Solway Plain in Scotland. To the east, ice was funnelled through the Stainmore saddle into Teesdale, and ended at a terminal moraine at Estrick, near York, Many drumlins occur in this areas as well as erratics of Snap granite. To the south, the ice reached Chester.

BORROWDALE

Rock type has influenced scenery. It is the effect of ice that produces the dramatic landscapes. Whole of Borrowdale was filled by ice. Grange Fell shows the evidence of ice scouring. The ridge at Cat Bells has glacial erratics.

Snout of glacier was constantly moving. This left a series of ridges: recessional moraines e.g. south of Rosthwaite.

Corrie basins - not very well developed into full-blown cirques, Have an elongated outline.

Gillercombe has a back wall about 600' high.

Roche Mouttonee are found at Grange and Rosthwaite.

Rock basin gouged out of less resistant beds e.g. Lake Derwentwater. (400' deep in places)

Hanging valleys. Overdeepening of main valley results in tributary valley hanging above, Eng

Stockley bridge. Styhead Gill has to fall 150' to reach the valley floor. Sourmilk Gill is in similar position.

Overflow: meltwater channel. Formed at the Jaws of Borrowdale, where the valley narrows. This results in overdeepening in this areas as ice had to squeeze through the gap. Meltwater from higher up couldn’t escape, forcing it to run parallel to the ice and not join it. Channel was helped by a fault in the volcanic rock in the area: pseudo bedding.

Has classic rock steps or riegels, as the valley descends. Not smooth like a river long profile. Tends to have depressions which are now occupied by bodies of water.

Glacial Diffluence: Ice spilling over into adjacent basins. Near Jaws, spilled NE into Watendlath.

Into Newlands valley at Littletown.

Involved the erosion and lowering of cols between the valleys.

Although erosion dominates the valley, there are also some depositional features:

Terminal and Lateral Moraines: these can be found at Rosthwaite. Rosthwaite is built on a rock barrier called the How. To the south of this, moraine has built up to a depth of 30’ and is eaten into by the river Derwent.

Flat valley floor: Rosthwaite: thought to be a temporary lake, as in Langdale Valley.

Hummocky drift occurs towards the head of valleys. Seatoller and Honister pass have these features.

Grains Gill has very obvious mounds of drift. Formed 8000 years BP

Have obviously been some post glacial modifications of the valley and its features.

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