Mrs Trellis
Well-known member
I've been thinking about it again aided by a walk up Mam Tor in't snow.
My guess:-
The NS ridge through Windy Knoll was much higher and effectively channelled the (then much bigger) Rushup Edge drainage towards the easterly swallets : Windy Knoll & Mam Tor (or another now buried under shale cover). That's why Giant's is relatively small and juvenile.
Later glaciation along the lines of the current roads leaves the interglacial drainage into the lower than Windy Knoll swallets Mam Tor and/or the possibly buried one ; these produce the vadose development of the "old" show cave - the Inferior Gallery. Drainage coming down the dip from the then much higher land to the east of Oxlow sinks into the doline to the south west of the shop and provides vadose development of the current show cave. These unite in the NW/SE joint now called the Variegated Cavern after enlargement. Meanwhile drainage from the gritstone-capped Treak Cliff has developed the Superior gallery until it reached a parallel NW/SE joint now called the Razor Back Cavern. The Rushup Edge streams eventually find the softer rock around the Ridge Back and unite with the third (Treak Cliff) stream from the Superior Gallery in the Razor Back Cavern. The sediment filling the "way on" is mostly the original capping of Treak Cliff.
With apologies to professional speleologists, speleogeneticists, geologists, etc. etc.
Now - the relict stuff in the reef limestone contact area with the boulder beds on Teak cliff itself; as evidenced in Treak Cliff Cavern, Odin Cavern, Tree Hole and possibly Suicide. Mmmm........................