Does anyone know, or has undertaken a GPR survey of Eldon Quarry ground level, specifically where the shaft was supposed to be.

http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=13306.0

Cheers

Theres no secret that I'm currently beavering away in Eldon quarry, well I say no secret, but I've not been publishing anywhere yet, but my visits are logged in the book correctly.

I had the weekend off this weekend and went for some drinks in York. Long and short I picked up an old copy of Caves of the peak district, don't know the vintage but Kevlar (on here) would be able to confirm vintage.
In the Caves of the Peak District book there is talk of Eldon Quarry cave, which was a 60ft hole (factcheck?) the location of this is in the pile of Big rubble just on the left as you look into the quarry from the slope down to base level.

My current dig is in something dubbed by members of SUSS "Alastair's Shallow Vagina", my name for it is Mattockmouth but it's technically correct name is Avenmouth Cave Number 2. The obvious vertical hole in the wall filled with laminated sediment, prior to digging the face was about 7m from the Lead vein behind, I estimate I am now approximately 3m from the lead Vein behind.
This is in a quite interesting spot as the lead rake behind is one which according to the Castleton caves book takes the water from coalpitholerake across to peak-speedwell.

not to detract from anything else in the quarry, there are a number of other good locations which you might wish to consider, one of which I climbed down on my last visit.
There is what appears to be a rift filled with rock on the First Bench. I will try and screenshot it's location later on the Eldon quarry survey as I don't believe it's marked. this is a little further east from "ASV"/"MM" or technically "Avenmouth Cave number 2"

Please find attached a painted copy of the Eldon Quarry survey, if you wish to have a full copy, send me a personal message with your email address.

Guess i'll need to Explain it now.

I'll start with your bit, the orange box I believe is the most interesting bit for you to use GPR on, and may reveal some interesting results.

It contains the Green cross which I believe is the rough location of the "Eldon Quarry cave" denoted in the Old Caves of the peak district book (aforementioned ) although finding anything here would be some serious boulder choke work!

You can see the Avenmouth caves below the Orange box, the lead rake of Interest (dotted line on survey) veers to the south a little before emerging on the bench above Avenmouth caves.

The red arrow shows an entry point onto the 2nd bench, which I believe there to be what could be a rift at the position of the orange cross.

for interest I got onto the 2nd bench [above the orange cross] by going right on the second bench from the arrow (ie south west) and then scrambling up onto the bench above Avenmouth caves and then further scrambling onto the second bench.

If bograts about then I am interesting in the rift he mentions, is it the same one as the Orange Cross?

bograt said:

...So they applied to go deeper...
However, on the site visit I did spot an accessible (natural) shaft in the floor of the third terrace, in line between Sidewinder and the quarryface rift that is obviously part of the Eldon Hole development, it had a BIG rock dumped in it.
I don't know what the place looks like now, might be able to get some sightings from any surviving quarryface features but I would have to be certain that any access arrangements are official and formalised (considering what has recently gone before) before I volunteer to help anyone out in there.

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Seems to be enough caveage around there to assume general interconnectedness between them all (before the quarry blasted through it).

If the quarry were to be roofed over with some faux-natural woodcrete type stuff, grassed on top and stals beneath, you could call it 'restored cave'. Then it won't be long before you could do an Eldon-P8-Convenience-Quarry-Sidetrack-Maskill-Oxlow-Giants through trip.

When you say wouldn't be long, do you mean in geological terms?

Well the through trip might take quite a while, but the connections are surely imminent.

Speaking of which... fancy another trip to Sidetrack soon?

Alastair, good to see you're on with things in there. I'm sure one of those AMCs was what Big Jim had a poke at for a while, till we hit a solid wall?

alastairgott said:

....This is in a quite interesting spot as the lead rake behind is one which according to the Castleton caves book takes the water from coalpitholerake across to peak-speedwell.....

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The idea that natural drainage follows rakes/veins is (in my mind) increasingly questionable. In fact i can think of many examples where passages actively avoid veins....

No..., but if you're going, can you collect my small crowbar and brick hammer?

Seriously, if you want to go back, I don't mind

I'll be back later with more armchair pictorial caving later

Rob, I guess it is spurious, but surely if we're getting blanks from surface infill (as many of the shafts end there) then the best thing to do is aim low...

I think I remember a trip report from a hole on the top, which became too tight. Was it Son of Nettle?

The vast amount of space between Eldon quarry and Cliffhanger (western most Peak-speedwell point) passage suggest that there's just about as much cave in a rectangle there as between Cliffhanger passage and the entrance to peak cavern.
[I've confirmed this spurious guesswork by going on Google maps and resizing the map till I get the Entrance to Peak Cavern and a point just west of Rowter farm and then scrolling west till Eldon Quarry is in but most of peak-speedwell has disappeared]

Many thanks for the info; the green cross is approximately where I was going to start the GPR. I don't want to butt in on someones dig or re-hash info already gathered.
The GPR has a depth range of around 3m so anything deeper and I'm stuffed. It's a shot in the dark so to say.

p.s. Our caving club  is SOS (Sheffield Old Scrots). Made up of a few ex SUSS and Poly cavers. Not mega active but we went into Ireby2 last weekend which is pretty impressive as is my lack of fitness, they don't call me Fatman for no reason!

alastairgott said:

Rob, I guess it is spurious, but surely if we're getting blanks from surface infill (as many of the shafts end there) then the best thing to do is aim low...

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Sorry, not sure what you mean here. 

alastairgott said:

I think I remember a trip report from a hole on the top, which became too tight. Was it Son of Nettle?

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Yes Son of Nettle closes up very tight (a few inches wide!). Mountbatton Pot doesn't close up, it's just floored with densely packed rubble....

alastairgott said:

The vast amount of space between Eldon quarry and Cliffhanger...

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Very true, loads to go at, keep digging! 

Fatman said:

Many thanks for the info; the green cross is approximately where I was going to start the GPR. I don't want to butt in on someones dig or re-hash info already gathered.

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Anyones more than welcome to the Crosses, not my dig. I'd quite like to finish flushing ASV out fist.

Rob said:

alastairgott said:

Rob, I guess it is spurious, but surely if we're getting blanks from surface infill (as many of the shafts end there) then the best thing to do is aim low...

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Sorry, not sure what you mean here.

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Many people have done and redone the old levering off the sleepers off shafts and having a good look.
I know of one person that did a lot of that, and visited some again recently, he'd noticed a change in them. They'd been "badgered"!
So there's been successive generations of people descending various mineshafts on the top, all to no avail (or with the farmer telling them to clear off!). The quarry now seems like one of the better shouts for pushing.
and low was a bit vague, but when you think of elevation, the base of Eldon quarry is not all that far above the previous floor of Eldon hole. (10-20meters at an educated but forgotten guess).

I'd be tempted to back up the assumed hydrology with a little reading from Rieuverts' relevant tome.

Browsing the volume reveals several swallows (open natural) in the general area.

I promised some more pictures, whether you like it or not, here they are!
I'll probably have some factchecking from Mr A.H. before the day is out.










So for posterity in case my pictures break! 1= pure google image of area in question, 2= Eldon Quarry survey cut to show only left had side (including Duckdown and Total congestion), 3= P8 Survey but only the surface relation from level with bull pit-south, 4= another work of art created by using paint on PC this image has also been placed on this page so is saved in all its glory?


Image 4 shows: Yellow Box- Potential GPR Location, Purple line- small "valley" bottom, Red x Approx end of P8 (sump 10) [error=+/- 2 fields], Blue x approx location of P8 sump six (where most of the water disappears).


Ash says between sump 9 and 10 there is some dry crawl passage, this could be the key to finding links and enlarging our knowledge. The key to this could be knowing as much as we can about the surface features above. ie GPR?

Please also find a doodle for the vague approximate location of Sump 10 (offscreen where the arrow is pointing) purple line again the "valley"

Derbyshire's rubbish  :blink:

Excellent info, many thanks. Not sure how effective the GPR will be but worth a try.

you still sound pretty set on GPR, there are a few more areas that might be interesting.


http://thedca.org.uk/dca-cr/registry/sitedetails.php?id=69

If that GPR kit only goes 3m deep, be wary of anywhere that has been landscaped due to the quarry (or other) workings.

Also Alastair, be wary of that P8 survey......

Rob said:

Also Alastair, be wary of that P8 survey......

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2 fields to the right would be nice