Abstract
LONDON. Geological Society, Mar. 21.—F. B. A. Welch: The geological structure of the Central Mendips. The Central Mendips comprise a rectangular area measuring roughly 80 square miles, lying between Shepton Mallet and Cheddar on the east and west respectively. As a whole, the Mendips consist of a west-north-westerly to east-south-easterly ridge, the structure being that of four periclines arranged en echelon. The cores of these periclines are of Old Red Sandstone age, with the Carboniferous Limestone Series succeeding. The Central Mendips include the North Hill, the Pen Hill, and part if the Beacon Hill periclines. Of these, North Hill and Pen Hill are more or less anticlinal in structure; but the Pen Hill pericline has been much disturbed by extensive earth movements. A large syncline, which extends from Cheddar to Wells, has been thrust from the south against the southern limb of the North Hill pericline, while at one point a ' window ' occurs in this syncline, revealing beds of the main hill-mass beneath the thrust. Parallel to this thrust, at Ebbor, a second great thrust is developed, isolated remnants of which are seen in the small hills north of Wells. Earth movements seem to have been directed mainly from the south, at first producing the ridge with periclines en echelon, and separated one from the other by normal synclines. Pressure continued, and appears to have been greatest in the Pen Hill region, where overfolding was developed. Finally overthrusting resulted, and large blocks of beds, bounded by extensive north-and-south faults, formed at the time of the thrusting, were driven northwards.M
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Societies and Academies. Nature 121, 606–607 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121606a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121606a0