h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.h2g2.com/A463691

Sedwick Geological Trail... An unique place that is hardly mentioned elsewhere on the Internet

Point of explanation. I have posted this in Peer Review because the author of the article made a blemish in the heading of his original posting.

Loony

A neat wee Entry I liked it Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

This is interesting but I think it would be improved with a bit more description and explanation. It's a little bit too dependent on links to other pages for information about plate tectonics and Adam Sedgewick, that might be removed because they are not BBC pages. Also, the links to pages about Yorkshire and Cumbria are awaiting moderation.

I have read your concerns. I am always a little bit lerry about
qouting sources as i am unsure about the copyrights involved.
glad you liked the page. Since I am working from America, I do not
know what the hoof and mouth scare is doing in the area of Yorkshire Downs.

Ah ha, Shagbark! I can give you a link to a site with all the answers and the moderators won't touch it because it's a BBC page. Have a look here and you'll find out what foot and mouth (hoof and mouth to Americans) is doing to the poor animals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/uk/2001/foot_and_mouth/default.stm

You may have noticed since you came back that h2g2 has changed a bit and urls are no longer allowed in posts unless they link to BBC pages.

just a note to anyone following this thread. On 23 May I did a small rewrite adding some text about faults.

June the sixth. I don't expect to do any more work on this site.
how will I know when some editor looks at it. Will they say so here?

When I first wrote this last November I spelled the name
correctly: Sedgwick. When Looneytunes put it in for Peer review
he left out the g. That made every conversation since list it as
Sedwick instead of sedgwick. The latter is correct.

When I first wrote this last November I spelled the name
correctly: Sedgwick. When Looneytunes put it in for Peer review
he left out the g. That made every conversation since list it as
Sedwick instead of sedgwick. The latter is correct.

OK, I've read it, a nice little piece.
I'm no geologist admittedly but surely you don't have to have a plate boundary to have a fault line. I'm not convinced there's a plate boundary between Yorkshire and Cumbria - at least not an active one anyway. As far as I remember the whole of Europe is on one plate stretching from the mid-Atlantic ridge to the Urals and south to the Mediterranean. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not a geologist either but the way I interpret what I have read
I believe mountains exist because of the intersection of plates
and the Cumbrian Mountains owe their existance to such a convergence.

What I do know is that Britains mountains are *very* old (welsh mountains - Cambrian - nearly the oldest geological age) so I guess they were formed by this method but the plates that formed them no longer exist. I'm pretty sure there is no active plate boundary within the British Isles.
Active plate boundaries are easy to spot really as they show volcanic activity, earthquakes are common, either mountain ranges are forming or there is a subduction zone (oceanic trench). This is not the case in England. I suspect a small rewording is all that is required - I really don't think your sentence is accurate at the present time.

I will grant that the plate boundarys are old. The guide book furnised when we toured there said 330 million years old and I will grant that it is inactive. As to whether it is still a plate boundary maybe someone should contact a geologist. a recent BBC report entitled The Dynamic Earth stated "Earthgquakes can even occur in Britain"

I feel like I'm sounding really pedantic now

Let me reiterate that this is a lovely entry.

I just don't like that particular sentence thats all. It was a plate boundary, not anymore. That's what I'm saying. Earthquakes just happen more often at plate boundaries - earthquakes can happen anywhere - they do not necessarily have to occur at plate boundaries.

To be more helpful maybe I should suggest a slight change.

Instead of

The Pastures of Yorkshire are on one plate.
The mountains of Cumbria,are on another.
Where these plates meet there are a series of geological fault lines.

Maybe it should read

The Pastures of Yorkshire were once on one plate,
the mountains of Cumbria were on another.
Where these plates met and collided there are a series of geological fault lines.

I admit it's a small point and maybe I'm being petty but I think
I will at least try to consult a geologist before accepting the
concept that plate boundaries have a finite lifespan and that
there is no longer one there.

One added note. I seem to have three seperate threads
on this item
and the longest one (this one is based on a misspelling) .
I wonder if maybe we should continue this conversation on thread
85644 where Sedgwick is spelled correctly.

Have you a link?

Plate boundaries can *definitely* fail. I do have quite a strong interest in plate tectonics and have read quite a bit about it and watched many programmes on tv. For example there is a failed spreading ridge (like the mid-Atlantic ridge only that one is still active) in the Carribbean - if it hadn't failed it would have split part of North America and there would have been two *new* plates.
Also the mid Atlantic ridge formed the Atlantic Ocean splitting up an old Supercontinent (Pangea?) again forming new plates.
I also believe that the Ural plate boundary has also failed so I think that the European plate and the Asian plate are technically joined at this range now.
Actually, my brother did part of his degree in Geology so I'll ask him if you like

OK. I'm convinced. I'll do the rewrite. I am also going to
summarise this thread on the one where it is spelled correctly.