This EarthCache is at the western end of the HangingStones Quarry. Please be careful as there are sudden drops. Watch your footing. The expanse that is Ilkley Moor, is a wonder for the person with a bit of geological interest. If you take a bit of time to look, and like a bit of a walk, you can step into a time many moons ago. The rocks that you can see around you are carboniferous sandstone, but we are not here to talk about that process, there are plenty of EarthCaches to look at about that era and type of stone.
The landscape that we can see all around us, has been most recently shaped by man who quarried the stone to make the disused quarry, but stepping much further back in time we come to the quartenary period, a time when Wharfedale was covered by an ice sheet. The ice sheet found its origin much further to the north, and at the time of the last ice age, it had its edge south of Bradford. We think of water as a fluid body, and tend to think of ice as a static body, though one that we tend to slip and slide on! The ice sheet however was not static it was a very slowly moving body of ice. As it moved along, it picked up and carried sand, rocks and bouders from the bedrock below and to the side of it. This debris as the ice sheet moved scrapped the bedrock below and to the side of it. This has left a geological record, in the form of glacial striation.
Lets think simple, if you scrape a bit of sandpaper along a piece of wood, it leaves lines, in the case of glacial striation it is the same principle.
At the EarthCache site there is a flat rock, which has glacial striations on it. Evidence of the time that this area was deep under the ice.
This being an EarthCache, in order to log it, I ask that you answer some questions. Please send them to me, and do not include them in your log. You can send them to me by using the message facility or email, both of which can be found by looking at my profile. It is not meant to be difficult to do.
1. Please get down on your knees, close your eyes and touch the striatae, what do they feel like?
2. Please measure the striatae, how long is the longest one?
3. How wide are the striatae (there is a thick indentation to the side, ignore this)?
4. What colour is the bedrock?
5. What direction do the glacial striations point towards, are they on an east west axis, or a north south axis?