Tuesday 19 May 2015

Conglomerate above the Secret Cave


Climbing the hillside above the Secret Cave, I found this amazing rock. I thought it was made of volcanic bombs but it is actually a conglomerate. Transportation cannot have been far because the particles are so big and they are very angular. There hasn't been much bashing together of the rock fragments to round their outlines. Apparently it formed in a delta. The rock fragments are volcanic but it said to be a sandstone infill, which I'll need to check if I go again. I found a wonderful article about the development of the Scafell Volcano Caldera. This area was on the outer edge. http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/gcrdb/GCRsiteaccount289.pdf Looking at the rock, I suppose it does look more like water transport because of the density of the large fragments. Volcanic bombs probably wouldn't occur in this density in ash.