Educational Resources

Nidderdale Rocks: How Nidderdale Began

The landscape around the River Nidd is so special that it has a title. Nidderdale – The beginning It is called an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Nidderdale is a river valley in North Yorkshire River Nidd HARROGATE RIPON

Moorland Woodland Nature Farming Water Homes Shops Businesses Tourism History and heritage What do you think are some of the special things in the Nidderdale landscape which might need looking after?

...And to find out why all these things are here.. We need to look at the land beneath our feet....

But when and how was Nidderdale made? Today, Nidderdale is in the Northern half of the world. We live in a cool climate in the northern hemisphere.

We need to travel back 350 million years to find out more... Nidderdale started in a different part of the world.

Can you see where scientists think the UK started? Yes! It was about here! Equator 350 million years ago, the continents of the world were all bunched together – a bit like this: Just below the equator!

Equator Can you guess where the UK and Nidderdale might be forming? Lets find it on the globe from 340 million years ago. Nidderdale was at the warmest part of the earth.

It lay beneath a warm shallow sea.

Nidderdale was like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia Imagine a beautiful tropical ocean full of corals and sea life

Here, tropical sea creatures died and fell to the bottom of the shallow sea. Over millions of years, their shells and bones formed layers of limestone. The layers got harder and harder as the weight of the layers above crushed them together.

The skeletons of the tropical creatures landed on a range of mountains which had already formed under the sea here. It was called the Askrigg Block B But what was under that? So below Nidderdale is a huge lump of very hard rock called the Askrigg Block ? Its top had already been worn off!

Yes. It was on top of this block that the limestone formed.

This limestone can be found in Upper Nidderdale When you look at it closely, you can see how the limestone has built up in layers How Stean Gorge, Lofthouse Coldstones quarry, Greenhow Goyden Pot, Lofthouse

Millions of years later, the sea level got lower as water froze at the poles. This w as washed off the land into the sea.. Plants grew on the land above the water. Mud formed over time It covered the lime sediments. This happened over and again

More limestone was also laid down in between these layers, where lots of fossils can still be found. This created new layers on top of the limestone called the ‘Yoredale’ shale, silts and sandstones.

You can find fossils of real sea creatures in these layers of Nidderdale limestone and other rocks This can be polished like marble and used in buildings Look carefully and you will find some ‘Nidderdale marble’ pillars at Fountains Abbey which are full of small fossils.

Visit the geology section of Nidderdale Museum to see fascinating fossils in a number of different types of Nidderdale rocks. It was found in a broken roof tile from the abandoned village of ‘Lodge’ at Scar House Reservoir. This is a fossilized brachiopod, on display at Nidderdale Museum,

When the land was not covered in sea, giant plants grew in swampy ground in some parts of Nidderdale. The rotting remains of these plants made another deep layer, which became the coal seams in the Upper Dale. Look carefully at this rock from Pateley Bridge. Can you seen the print of the lycopod tree branch from millions of years ago? Stone from Scot Gate Quarry, Pateley Bridge On display at the Nidderdale Museum.

Coal

But what about the dark rock we see everywhere in Nidderdale called millstone grit?

320 million years ago, Nidderdale was still in the tropics, but had become part of a big river delta like this one. Tonnes of grit were washed on top of the layers of sand, mud and limestone already there.

This layer has become the hard-wearing dark millstone grit which we see in many places in Nidderdale.

Why isn’t Nidderdale still underwater? 280 million years ago, moving land collided together making huge earthquakes which bent and cracked the rock Some of the rock was pushed upwards. Why are the rocks that were underneath near the surface now?

Also, later, hot liquid with metal and other minerals in it crept into the cracks left in rocks by the earthquakes.

Sometimes beautiful crystals were formed. Flourite can be found in Coldstones Quarry, Greenhow Iron ore and ‘bog’ iron can be found in many parts of Nidderdale And valuable metals became part of the rocks along the fault and crack lines in this area. Lead ore (galena) and calcite can be found at Greenhow

For the next 200 million years, Nidderdale drifted northwards a few centimetres every year. At this time dinosaurs were in charge of the earth and sea.

Streams and rivers cut into the landscape, eventually forming the river Nidd and the dale itself.

Earthquakes continued to fold and shape the rocks. Surface layers eroded, leaving different rock types at the surface. Millstone gritShales Limestone Millstone grit Older rocks

From 2 million to 12,000 years ago, the climate kept changing from warm to... In the coldest times the whole of the UK was covered in ice sheets. freezing......and back again.

The temperature changed dramatically in between these times. 130,000 – 75,000 years ago hyenas, lion, woolly mammoth, hippos and narrow-nosed rhino roamed Nidderdale Different animals came and went, depending on the climate.

When it became very cold, ice formed. Then it melted when the climate warmed. The ice moved slowly, scraping part of the sides and bottom of the Nidd valley as it moved and dumping it at various places in the dale. Each time the glacier melted, vast amounts of water caused large underground caves to be formed in the permeable limestone as well as the river and large lakes. The extra water in the river eroded the valley floor too. The ice made a huge heavy glacier which changed the upper valley from a v-shape to a u-shape.

What about all the loose sand, gravel and mudstones in Nidderdale? Glacier action The glaciers scraped sediments and rocks from the valley floor and sides and ‘dropped’ them when the ice melted.. ( Blue areas) The rivers and streams in Nidderdale continue to move stones, break them and change their shape. The stones and sediments are dropped where the river slows down. The cold, wind and rain still breaks stones into smaller pieces and changes their shape, just like at Brimham Rocks. Weather River action

The last glacier in Nidderdale melted about 11,000 years ago, but the landscape has continued to change. What do you think is most responsible for this? The weather? Animals? Human beings ?

Image Credits We gratefully acknowledge the use of the following images in this document: Slide 2: Map of England’s counties: By Nilfanion and Dr Greg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Slide 8, 9, 24, 27, 30: These images, originally available on the internet via S Scotese’s website are now able to be used via an app. [License Information (c) 2010, C. R. Scotese These maps may be used or modified in any manner for personal use, teaching, research or in scientific publications as long as appropriate credit is given to the author Moore, T.L., and C.R. Scotese., 2016, Ancient Earth: Breakup of Pangea, Vers. 1.7, iOS Mobile Application, retrieved from License The license for Ancient Earth conforms to Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement with additions to follow:Licensed Application End User License Agreement Paleoglobe images produced by Ancient Earth: Breakup of Pangea The individual images produced by Ancient Earth: Breakup of Pangea are the sole, intellectual property of C. R. Scotese, PALEOMAP Project. These maps may be used or modified in any manner for non-commercial personal use and academic purposes such as: teaching, research, lectures, seminars, thesis research, and research grant proposals. The paleoglobe images produced by Ancient Earth: Breakup of Pangea may be freely used in non-profit scientific publications and journals (paper or on the web) as long as appropriate credit is given to the author (see below for credit line). The copyright imprimatur may not be altered in any way. Slide 10: Small image of coral and fish: By Mark Peter [CC BY 2.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons - File:Dendrogyra cylindrus (pillar coral) (San Salvador Island, Bahamas) 1 ( ).jpg Large aerial view of the Great Barrier Reef: By Sarah_Ackerman - CC BY 2.0, Slide 11: Coral reef: By Hagainativ (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons Small image of fossil Pilomerops escoti: By Didier Descouens - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Slide 12, 13, 16, 20, 23, 25: Geology illustration ‘still’ reproduced from the video, ‘Limestone the Living Rock’ with kind permission from Sid Perou Slide 14: Coldstones Quarry by Malcolm Street [CC BY-SA 2.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons Limestone layers: By Mikenorton (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons Slide 15: File: Mudslide in Cwm Ystwyth: Nigel Brown [CC BY-SA 2.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credits (cont) Slide 17: Crinoids: By DanielCD (Own work) [GFDL ( or CC-BY-SA-3.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons Frosterley Marble: Andrew Curtis [CC BY-SA 2.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons ‘Marble’ pillar at Fountains Abbey – J Sharpley Slide 18: A fossilized brachiopod: photo with kind permission of Nidderdale Museum Slide 19: Etching depicting some of the most significant plants of the Carboniferous: By Bibliographisches Institut - Meyers Konversationslexikon. technik.uni-ulm.de:8080/Meyers2/index/index.html, Public Domain, [Adapted] Rock with lycopod fossil: with kind permission of Nidderdale Museum Slide 22: Aerial view of delta with outline of UK and good explanation on the ‘Valley of Stone’ website, based on the Rossendale area from: Image found at: n-nDDbD-nglQb/600px-Lena_River_Delta_-_Landsat_2000_copy.jpg. Image originally adapted from one on wikimedia commons: By none (Landsat) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (no attribution legally required) n-nDDbD-nglQb/600px-Lena_River_Delta_-_Landsat_2000_copy.jpg Larger picture of delta: By NASA (Transferred from en.wikipedia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (no attribution legally required) Slide 26: Bog ore: CC BY-SA 3.0, Flourite: Public Domain, Galena and calcite: By Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, Slide 27: Diplodocus: By Charles Robert Knight - Public Domain, Slide 28: River formation sketch: JSharpley Slide 32: Glacier image: By Cecilia Bernal - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Slide 34: Storm cloud: CC BY-SA 3.0, Cumulus cloud and blue sky: By Huhu Uet - Own work, CC BY 3.0,