Just read a short book on the geology of the Lake District. Ive often wondered how it got there. Well, guys, when our ancestors were slimy bits of algae on the shores of a boundless tropical ocean, there was this gigantic supervolcano (roughly, Westmorland) on the shores of a muddy ocean (Cumberland). Then the muddy sea closed up and the far shoreline, including most of Scotland, came crashing into the coast, raising the mud and lava up into a range of mountains higher than Everest. These were then worn flat and flooded by another sea, disappearing under the seashells and chalky muck on the sea-bed. Then, around the time the algae had evolved into some dinosaurs, Africa crashed into southern Europe, hoisting up the Alps and lifting the whole area up high *again.* In the ensuing chaos, the old mud and lava - now coated in seashells and chalky muck - was caught under a huge bubble of molten granite rising from below. The bubble of molten granite pushed up a blister-like dome in the flat chalky muck, with the summit roughly where the Scafells now are. Finally, the chalky muck was washed off by wind, rain, and, eventually, glaciers, exposing the mud and lava underneath in the form of the underlying stumps of the old mountains higher than Everest. Then the glaciers melted, leaving the lakes as puddles of meltwater. Then people moved into the worn-down stumps of the old mud-and-lava mountains and covered them with sheep farms, micro-breweries and increasingly glitzy tourist amenities. Wow.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 16:36:35 +0000
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