The Woolpacks EarthCache
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This area known as WOOL PACKS on the OS map is situated on the top of Kinder Scout, in the Peak District, this area in particular is one of the most stiking and distinctive features of the whole area, very rewarding for those who make the climb...
The Wool Packs' is the name on the OS map for a large number of oddly shaped gritstone tors on the southern edge of Kinder Scout.
The Wool Packs themselves are fashioned from the rocks of the Kinder plateau; hard bedded Namurian sandstones called MILLSTONE GRIT, laid down 300 million years ago in the CARBONIFEROUS era by a vast river delta, disgorging its sand and quartz, eroded from ancient mountain chains, over hundreds of square miles of what is now Wales and Northern England. The Kinder grits were from the delta mouth, where fast flowing rivers dropped their heavier particles which consolidated to form a hard, coarse stone, rough to the touch and containing large crystals of milky white quartz.
Gritstone otherwise called Millstone grit is a sedimentary rock composed of coarse sand grains with inclusions of small stones. It is a coarser version of sandstone. It was laid down in the late (upper) Paleozoic era, in the Carboniferous period, in delta conditions.
As gritstone is a sedimentary rock it frequently shows signs of cross-bedding or current bedding. It is quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, grind wood into pulp for paper and grindstones to sharpen blades.
The rock is much loved by English climbers, among whom it has almost cult status and is often referred to as "God's own rock". The rough surface provides outstanding friction, enabling climbers to stand on or grip the subtlest of features in the rock.
What is left today has to be seen to be believed, a landscape of eerie and quite surreal rock formations, many of which looking like animals and people ! it truly is an amazing location.
As the great rivers brought succeeding coarse and fine material down to the delta over the ages, it formed layers of what became harder and softer rock. A consequence of this is that the Grit weathers unevenly along its planes and joints as you can see in many of the sculptures in the Wool Packs, take a look at how rounded the rocks are in places and how the age they are from has created them.
The alternating layers of sand, mud and grit became compressed to form a huge 'sandwich' seen notably in outcrop at Mam Tor. These sediments became the shales, siltstones and sandstones (MILLSTONE GRIT) of the Dark Peak. The presence of turbidites in these layers indicates the growing instability of the delta sediments followed by repeated subterranean landslides out into deeper water. This instability continues into the present as the thin layers are very loose and friable. When water seeps between them, catastrophic landslips result such as Mam Tor(another Earthcache)
The photo's below were taken by me during an unusually really sunny day in October 2008:
(visit link)
(visit link)
The hard, horizontal strata of Millstone Grits on the level Kinder plateau are impervious to water, making the plateau poorly drained. The surface of the moor is covered with a blanket of peat many feet thick, laid down during the warm, wet Boreal period after the last ice-age (climate change comes and goes), which supports an upland heath flora of heather and bilberry with some coarse grasses. The peat is dissected by deep drainage channels called groughs, up to three metres deep, separated by vegetation capped crests called haggs, so that what appears, from a distance, to be a flat landscape can make for very strenuous walking, over wave upon wave of soggy peat.
The Gritstone Tors (as seen above)can be seen dotted about all over the Kinder Plateau but this is by far the best place to see a huge mind boggling variety of them, truly stunning stuff.
To claim this cache:
1. please post at least 2 photo's of you/or your GPS with the different unusual Rocks in this area.
2. As we know that these formations were created during the 'Carboniferous' period, but what I want to know from you is which other 5 periods form part of the 'Paleozoic Era' of which the Carboniferous era is a part of ?
Please email me your answers and don't put them in your logs please.
As a word of advice please be aware before setting out, that this is not a 'walk' as such, there are some hard hills to climb and even though you can take one of several accepted 'walking routes' to the summit it can be very hard going! if you are a comfortable climber/scrambler why not ascend via one the the 'cloughs' on either side, I've done 3 of them now and they can be very enjoyable while being challenging, good footwear must be worn when attempting this cache, also please BEWARE of the peat bogs around here and try and stick to the tracks for obvious reason, and finally.... have fun !
PLEASE NOTE: I receive a very high number of Earthcache emails, I can’t reply to them all otherwise I’d be doing nothing else all day, as has always been the case there is no need to await a reply from me regarding your answers…. However due to numerous people thinking they can just log these caches without emailing any answers, and/or completing the required tasks these will be picked up, and the logs will be deleted without further communication. To facilitate this Please email your information either before, or AT THE SAME TIME OF LOGGING THE CACHE, Thanks.
## update 15/04/09 - thanks to all who have posted good logs and pictures !! it's great to see peoples different interpretations of the rock shapes - keep them coming !
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Lbh'yy xabj jura lbh ner gurer !!