Search

The Brassington Formation of the Pennines is the most extensive onshore Miocene succession in the UK. It is preserved as outliers in Lower Carboniferous Limestone. During the Cenozoic, central England underwent uplift, with erosion of post-Mississippian strata from the Pennine axis in the Peak District. The Brassington Formation is hence significant in reconstructing Cenozoic geological history. It is non-marine, derived from Triassic sandstone and of Mid-Late Miocene age. The c. 60 outliers occur in three clusters over c. 220 km2. They are remnants of a sedimentary prism at least 75 m thick and with a volume of c. 10 km3. Suffosion of bedrock, conditioned by aggressive precursor fluids of hypogenic origin, was the major control on subsidence. The calculated volume of the fills in the Bees Nest and Green Clay outliers is 3.7-5.0 × 106 m3. Referenced to a sub-Miocene surface at c. 450 m OD in pre-subsidence times, the original volume of this subsidence complex was c. 21.8 × 106 m3 and the aggregated volume of the Late Neogene White Peak palaeokarst was at least 0.66 km3. Subsidence was concomitant with Pliocene uplift of the Pennine Axis, suggesting suffosion accommodation of 3 × 106 m3 per km2 or 244 m3 per annum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Sustainable development” implies that a stable relationship between human activities and the natural world is possible such that the prospects of future generations do not diminish. Can this really be achieved in our urban centres where social and economic issues are often the driving force behind development? Geoscience information has traditionally been under-utilised in planning and development, because all too often its relevance and significance is misunderstood or underappreciated. However, this is starting to change. Using case studies from London and the Thames Gateway Development Zone, this paper discusses how technological developments, such as improvements in GIS technologies and 3D modelling software, are driving this turnaround. The paper also considers the impact of organisations not sharing ground investigation geodata and know-ledge about anomalous ground conditions across London, the huge benefits that data sharing can offer and how lessons learned in this study can be applied to other urban centres. The paper will show that within the environmental ecosystem, if one component part is misunderstood, then developing sustainably without compromising future needs will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. In London, difficult ground conditions cost developer's time and money through project overruns and expensive engineering solutions. A more sustainable solution is in improving our understanding of the relationship between the geology (lithology) and its properties (physical, chemical or hydrological characteristics). We will show that for the urban underground to be fully utilised throughout Europe, the lack of development policies for the subsurface needs to be addressed. For a subsurface development policy to be written, stakeholders will need to regard the urban underground as environmentally sensitive, just as it does for the surface.

The article presents information on the monitoring of Great Britain's landscape which is important for understanding its history and to predict its future. As stated, features of glacial landscapes can be studied with the help of cosmogenic radionuclides and by interpreting different landforms. It further discusses the importance of assessing landscapes' sensitivity to changes in external factors in order to enhance dynamic models of environmental sensitivity.