Limestone Clints & Grykes walk - Lancashire Wildlife

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6Gait BarrowsNationalNature Reserve7NO dogs on thisstretch of route5HawesWater48932TrowbarrowLocal NatureReserve10CringlebarrowWood11Station114DeepdalePond1213
1 Silverdale Station (rail & bus stop)As you leave the station turn left along theroad. After 150m turn left into StorrsLane. To your right is RSPB Leighton MossNature Reserve visitor centre.50m past the visitor centre go througha field gate on your right and follow thepath that runs parallel with the road.At the end of the path turn right, past thecauseway entrance and 100m onyour left is a footpath sign. Follow thepermissive path towards TrowbarrowLocal Nature Reserve (LNR).This route known as ‘The Trough’follows a linear gorge 5-10 metres wide,with vertical rock walls on either side.The Carboniferous <strong>Limestone</strong> thatconstitutes the bedrock of the whole ofthe Area was formed over 300 millionyears ago from the calcareous skeletonsof billions of creatures, shells and coralsdeposited at the bottom of a shallow,warm tropical sea – this part of the BritishIsles was then close to the equator, havingsince drifted north with the movement oftectonic plates. Periods of lime sedimentdeposition alternated with periods of muddeposition. Water containing fine grains oferoded rock flowed far out into this sea,and the particles settled to the bottomforming muds, which in the course of timebecame layers of mudstone or shalebetween the limestone strata.Trough FormationRunning about one quarter of the way upin the Urswick <strong>Limestone</strong>, the rock unitwhich predominates in the south-east ofthe Area, is a major bed of mudstone(Woodbine Shale). It may representaround 1,000 years’ worth of deposits.At the end of the Carboniferous period,which lasted for 65 million years (between345 and 280 million years ago), theearth’s surface underwent a seriesof dramatic earth movements. All thismovement of the earth’s crustal (tectonic)plates resulted in folding, buckling andfaulting of the bedding planes often beingupturned vertically, as in the case of thelimestone on either side of the trough.The Trough2 Trowbarrow LNR. Passing through theJohn Mabson Memorial gate (designed inthe shape of a climber’s karabiner) you enterTrowbarrow LNR that was formerly a quarry.Derived from two words, ‘Trow’ meaning‘trough’ and ‘barrow’, the Anglo-Saxon wordfor hill.Shale is a softer rock and more readily weatheredthan limestone when it is exposed at the surfaceleading to the formation of the eroded notchknown as The Trough.John Mabson Memorial gate
Page 1: Arnside andSilverdaleClints& Grykes
Page 5 and 6: The basin is filled with sediments,
Page 7 and 8: On reaching the field, turn right b

Limestone Clints & Grykes walk - Lancashire Wildlife

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