Yorkshire, England

1. Yorkshire
Charlie Dixon
Gel 103

2. General Information
• Yorkshire is an area in the north of England situated on the coast line and
inland. It’s general land mass is 2,000,000 acres/11,900 squared
killometers.
• We have a population of 5.3 million people
• From sea level, some of the highest points in Yorkshire raise up to 2,500 ft
• Major Ecosystems in Yorkshire include: river Hull, Oak trees, Horse
chestnut, and Deer.
• It’s habitat to thousands of different kinds of plants and animals, including
quail, deer, sea guls, sheep, horse chestnut, oak and many more.
(Yorkshire Wildlife Trust 2015)

3. Geological Background
• The continental collisions of the Alpine
Orogeny formed the Alps, Pyrenees and
Carpathian Mountains in Europe. With the
UK being over 1000 km from the collision
zone, only minor structures record the
orogeny. The majority of evidence comes
from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks of
Yorkshire England, where it gave rise to
localised folds and faults
• Tallest peak whernside is 2450 ft high.
• Different types of rock found sandstone,
limestone, clay and slate and shale
• Yorkshire is home to 3 national parks
(TGS 2016)

4. Quail
Pic from Google

5. Quail
• There are roughly 130 different species of Quail
• Quail are a game bird and are very similar to partridges, however they’re much
smaller and less robust.
• They live in the countryside setting up nests in long grassy areas such as wheat fields.
• Reproduction leads to the hen laying 12 eggs in her nest in the spring time
• They feed off seeds and berries but if they can’t find any that are worth eating they
will feed off roots of plants and even some insects.
• Quails can fly but they chose not to as they’re poor fliers, they tend to stick to
running because even amongst long grass & shrubbery, they can reach speeds of
upto 12 mph
• Quails are a relatively new bird that don’t have any evolutionary history, however
they’re one of the most common birds in the Yorkshire area and the terrain of the
County is perfect for them
Encyclopedia of birds

6. Deer
• Deer are a huge part of the wildlife in Yorkshire, you will most likely
see one every morning if you get up early enough.
• They are often killed by motorists because in Yorkshire, we have a lit
of trees/shrubs/long grass by the sides of roads which the deer live
in, when they hear the loud noises of cars it startles them causing
them to panic. Out of panic they move in any direction often running
out into the road and getting hit by a car/van/lorry
• Deers primarily feed on grass and leaves
• A doe (mother deer) usually only has 1 or 2 offspring (the off spring
are fawns)
• Deer is a very expensive and desired meat to eat amongst the
farming community of Yorkshire.
• Deers evolved around 30 million years ago in the oligocene period.
Although there’s not much fossil proof if this evolution, scientists
have found fragments of bone to support evidence.

7. Plants and Trees in Yorkshire
• Native plants and trees that I found and researched are Horse
Chestnut trees, Poppy flowers and Oak trees
Picture from google

8. Horse Chestnut
• Horse chestnut trees are found all across Yorkshire
• Horse chestnut are a deciduous tree
• Thought to of first appeared in the 16th century (quite a modern tree)
• The produce a thick sap which helps the tree to protect itself from insects
and sap
• The tree forms itself a slightly poisonous immune system for if it gets eaten
by an animal, that animal becomes instantly sick.
• Can grow up to 100ft high
• Found on soft soil. Its long roots go deep into the groung so it can soak up
all all the nurturance and the water from the soil
• The concer nuts that the horse chestnut tree produces help feet animals
such as wild hare, rabbits and squirrel.
(Heart of Englands forest 2016)

9. Oak Tree
• Oak tree’s are the most traditional trees you’ll find in Yorkshire
• Grow up to 90 feet high with branches that stem up to 135 feet
• They can live for hundreds of years
• If you cut an oak tree down, you can count how old it is by the
amount of rings on the stump.
• Due to it’s deep, wide roots, it can absorb up to 50 gallons of water
per day.
• Oak trees first appeared 35 million years ago in the priabonian age
• The oak tree can be a home to many different species including
insects, birds, mammals and fungi.
(heart of Englands forest 2016)

10. The Poppy flower
• Poppies grow all across Yorkshire, mostly in the wild but you get the
occasional poppy farms to.
• Poppy seeds spread in the wind which scatters them in all new places
to allow them to grow again in different areas
• Scientists have used poppies for many years because from the seeds
they produce opium which can be used as a drug or a recreational
drug. Morphine is an example of the drug that can be produced from
poppy seeds as is codine.
Picture of poppy seeds from Google

11. Geological Area of my research
Picture of the Humber Estuary from Google

12. The Humber Estuary
• The Humber estuary is the largest estuary in Yorkshire, not only
Yorkshire but the whole of the east coast of England.
• 5 different rivers fall into the moth of the Humber Estuary: Don,
Calder, Ouse, Drentwater and Hull
• The estuary leads all the way into the North Sea after a whopping 38
mile stretch. Its basin is 9,350 square miles.
• The Estuary dates back to the ice ages where where it just use to be a
dry bed for the North Sea, however since then, world sea levels have
risen causing the Estuary to fill up.

13. The Three Peaks
• The Three Peaks are the highest points
in yorkshire, 3 different mountains all in
the same area, caused by tectonic plates
coming together with such force, it
began to push up the land which created
the peaks.
• The peaks were formed during the
carboniferous period around 300 million
years ago.
• The peaks are made up of mostly
limestone, however geologists have
found sandstone to also make up some
of the mountains
• The highest peak of the 3 is 2,450ft high
which belongs to the mountain
“whernside”
(3peakchallenge)

14. Limestone
• Limestone is a sedimentary rock
• Sedimentary rocks are rocks that are formed by the deposition and
compression of that material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of
water. It’s a process that takes millions of years but sediments of rocks
build up in a process called sedimentation, hence the name sedimentary
rocks.
• The majority of Yorkshire is made up of limestone, including some
mountains and most cliff walls on the coast line, I found this piece of
limestone down at the beach just near a cliff where it had eroded from
• Calcium carbonate is the main component to make up Limestone the
minerals that make up calcium carbonate are calcite and aragonite.
• Limestone can be used in cement which is used to build houses and roads
which we travel on.
Photograph by Charlie Dixon
(BBC Bitesize)

15. Slate
• Slate is a metamorphic rock
• Earth movements can cause rocks to be deeply buried or
squeezed. As a result, the rocks are heated and put under great
pressure. They do not melt, but the minerals they contain are
changed chemically, forming metamorphic rocks.
• Slate is a rock that was formed in the paleozoic age and is believed
to be around 500 million years old.
• Slate is found in certain areas in Yorkshire, there isn’t much of it
around but where you can find it is in the quarries of north
Yorkshire, I found this piece in a field near my house, I can only
guess it got carried there by some form of machinery,
• Slate is often used for the tiles on rooves of houses.
Photograph by Charlie Dixon
(BBC Bitesize)

16. Basalt
• Basalt is an Igneous rock.
• Igneous rock is formed by magma which is found in the earths centre. When the
magma cools and solidifies, it creates a kind of rock which is igneous rock.
• If the magma cools quickly, small crystals form in the rock. This can happen if the
magma erupts from a volcano. Obsidian and basalt are examples of this
happening. They are called extrusive igneous rocks because they form from
eruptions of magma.
• Because igneous rocks come from the earths mantle, they can be billions of years
old, there’s no real time scale on them
• Basalt and other igneous rocks are not common in this area of England due to the
lack of volcanic activity, I myself couldn’t find any. However I’m sure there’s some
somewhere that’s got here through being carried by machinery etc.
• Basalt has many uses, including being used in the construction industry for many
different things such as roads, buildings etc.
Picture from Google
(BBC Bitesize)

17. Principle of Inclusion
• Principle of inclusion is used for relative dating
• Inclusion occurs when fragments of a rock get lodged into a layer of another,
larger rock. The rock/rock fragments are older then the larger rock that it forms
into.
• The principle of inclusion also applies to xenoliths
• Xenolith rock fragments within an intrusive igneous body that is unrelated to the
igneous body itself. Xenoliths which represent pieces of older rock incorporated
into the magma while it was still fluid. Potentially located near their original
position of detachment or may have settled deep into the intrusion if their
density is greater.
(Inclusion and Xenolith 2014)

18. Unconformities and Angular Unconformities

19. Unconformities and Angular Unconformities
• Unconformities are gaps in Geologic records that may indicate episodes of sea level variations,
erosion and crustal deformation.
• Unconformities occur when older sediment strata has been eroded and younger strata sediments
come in and deposit on that eroded surface
• The rocks above an unconformity are younger than the rocks beneath (unless the sequence has
been overturned). An unconformity represents time during which no sediments were preserved
in a region
Unconformities
(Wikipedia & cliffnotes)
Angular Unconformities
• An angular unconformity is an unconformity where horizontally parallel strata of sedimentary
rock are deposited on tilted and eroded layers, producing an angular discordance with the
overlying horizontal layers. The whole sequence may later be deformed and tilted by further
orogenic activity.
(Wikipedia)

20. Reference page
• Quail. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2016, from http://www.britannica.com/animal/quail
• Poppy. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppy
• GLOSSARY. (n.d.). Retrieved June 18, 2016, from https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap4-Plate-
Tectonics-of-the-UK/Alpine-Orogeny
• River Humber.com, Places and Attractions around the Area. (n.d.). Retrieved June 18, 2016, from
http://www.riverhumber.com/
• Xenolith. (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2016, from http://www.britannica.com/science/xenolith
• Rocks: Igneous, Metamorphic and Sedimentary. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2016, from
http://geology.com/rocks/
• Yorkshire Three Peaks. (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2016, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_Three_Peaks
• Your spotter's guide to the forest - The Heart of England Forest. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2016, from
https://www.heartofenglandforest.com/spotters-guide/?gclid=CMPGt5TLts0CFfYV0wodyv4NMg?gclid

21. • BBC - KS3 Bitesize Science - The rock cycle : Revision. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2016, from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/science/environment_earth_universe/rock_cycle/revision/1/
• Igneous Rocks in Britain. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2016, from
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/ks3/gsl/education/resources/rockcycle/page3520.html
• Deer. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer